Shekhar Gupta is the Editor-in-Chief of The Indian Express. He also heads the 78-year -old Express Group which has 13 influential publications and the nation's largest network of award-winning journalists. Shekhar has to his credit some of the most significant newsbreaks in Indian journalism. He joined the Indian Express as a cub reporter at its Chandigarh edition in 1977 and three years later, at just 23, The Indian Express sent him to India's troubled north-east where he covered the then raging insurgencies and civil unrest. As a reporter, and then an editor, with India Today, Shekhar has brought to readers in India a ringside view of contemporary history: From Operation Bluestar to the Olympic Games in Seoul, the student uprising in Tiananmen Square in Beijing to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first Gulf War from Baghdad, Jerusalem and Kuwait, the first "jihad" in Afghanistan and the many twists & turns in the troubled 1983-1993 decade in Sri Lanka's Tamil North. Shekhar’s weekly column called National Interest is one of the most credible and independent voices in the media. He also hosts Walk the Talk on NDTV 24x7.

Mark Lilla is Professor of Humanities at Columbia University. He specializes in intellectual history, with a particular focus on Western political and religious thought. Before moving to Columbia in 2007, he taught in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago and at New York University. A regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, he is the author of The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (2007), The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics (2001),and G.B. Vico: The Making of an Anti-Modern (1993). He is currently writing a book titled Ignorance and Bliss, and another on the history of the idea of conversion. He has been the recipient of numerous awards for his work.

Dr. Azhar Hakim is a physician, psychotherapist and transformational coach who has worked in the US, Singapore, Dubai and India. His areas of expertise include substance abuse and addiction. Before moving to India, he was the Director of Operations at The Queen of Peace Center, a family-centered behavioral healthcare provider for women with addiction, their children and families, in St. Louis, Missouri. His career spans leadership positions in the private sector and not for profit organizations, professorship in US academia, and private practice in organizational consultancy, coaching and counseling services in the Middle East, USA and India. His work in the field of mental health has focused on substance abuse and addiction.