A public policy and development professional with over three decades of experience, L K Atheeq is currently the Chairperson of Bengaluru Business Corridor. He previously served as additional chief secretary to the Chief Minister of Karnataka, senior adviser to the World Bank and joint secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office.

His expertise spans governance reform, rural development, public finance, education, and health policy. He contributed to landmark initiatives, including the Right to Education Act, the revamp of Integrated Child Development Services, the emergence of the National Health Mission and the Food Security Law.

He has also served as principal secretary to the Chief Minister of Karnataka and on the boards of major public enterprises. As additional chief secretary (finance), he oversaw the Government of Karnataka’s financial and treasury management.

Prof M S Sriram is a professor of public policy at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Previously, he was a professor in the finance and accounting area and held the ICICI Bank Lalita D Gupte Chair in Microfinance at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He has also worked as vice president (finance) at BASIX and was a faculty member at the Institute of Rural Management Anand.

In addition to his academic work, he has been active in the policy space, chairing the Expert Committee on Kerala Co-operative Bank and serving on the Financial Inclusion Advisory Committee of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the External Advisory Committee of RBI for licensing small finance banks, the Vaidyanathan Committee on co-operative reforms and the RBI Expert Committee on Primary (Urban) Cooperative Banks.

He graduated from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand and is a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. He is on the board of AU Small Finance Bank and Indian Dairy Machinery Company and serves as a trustee of Pratham Books, Sanket Trust (which runs Ranga Shankara) and Dastkar Andhra.

A well-known Kannada author, Sriram has written several articles and books, including three on finance-related subjects. He won the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award for his collection of short stories titled Salman Khanana Difficultiesu.

Vanamala Viswanatha is a bilingual scholar and translator who has taught, published and promoted Indian literature in English translation.

A former professor of English Studies, Vanamala taught English for over four decades at several premier institutions in Bengaluru including the Indian Institute of Science, Regional Institute of English, Bangalore University and Azim Premji University.

Her inwardness with Kannada literature has found its best expression in her English translations of ancient, medieval and modern Kannada classics. Beyond translating seminal works of U R Ananthamurthy, Lankesh, Tejasvi, Vaidehi and Sara Aboobacker, her repertoire includes the poetry of 12th-century woman saint poet Akka Mahadevi in Vachana (Basava Samithi, 2012), the 13th-century poetic text of Raghavanka, The Life of Harishchandra (Harvard University Press, 2017) and Kannada literary colossus Kuvempu’s epic novel Bride in the Hills (Penguin Random House, 2024).

Prof Vanamala Viswanatha received the Best Translation Award in 2020 from Kuvempu Bhasha Bharati for her co-translation of Indira Bai (Oxford University Press). Her translation of Vaddaradhane, a 10th century Jaina text will be published by Harvard University Press, in 2026. She is currently translating Lakshmisha Tolpadi’s meditative essays on the Mahabharata for Ashoka University (Penguin Random House, 2026).

She has served as associate director, Katha Regional Centre, as honorary director, Centre for Translation, Sahitya Akademi, Bengaluru, and as a member, Advisory Committee, National Translation Mission.

Padma Shri awardee Dr Vijayalakshmi Deshmane overcame poverty and parental illiteracy to excel as a cancer surgeon and served as the director of Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology.

She was the first woman professor at Kidwai Memorial Cancer Hospital in Bengaluru and is best known for her specialisation in breast cancer surgery, as well as her advocacy for affordable cancer care.

She has also served as vice-president of the Karnataka Cancer Society and led the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research in Mohali, Punjab.

Dr Deshmane has advised multiple governmental and non-governmental bodies on cancer policy and participated in numerous social initiatives, awareness camps, research projects and rural education programmes.

Post-retirement, she has been associated with NGOs providing free surgeries and consultations to underprivileged women. As president of Abalashrama in Bengaluru, she has empowered deprived girls with essential life skills.