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Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, Professor of Botany at Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, specializes in developmental and environmental botany.  He has to his credit some 200 research publications, 20 popular articles and five books.  He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, the United Writers Association, National Environmental Science Academy, Indian Botanical Society and the Academy of Environmental Biology and has received HL Chakravarty Award (1986) of ISCA, Al-Biruni Award (1988) of MAAS and the World Environmental Congress Award (1997).  He has visited South Korea under INSA International Scientists Exchange Programme, and delivered talks in the universities of Hong Kong, Japan and Malaysia.

Khushwant Singh was born in 1915 in Hadali, Punjab. After university education in Lahore and London, he practiced at the Lahore High court before joining the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. He began a distinguished career as a journalist with all India Radio in 1951. Since then he has been founder-editor of Yojana, editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India and the Hindustan Times and chief editor of New Delhi. Today he is India’s best known columnist. Khushwant Singh has also had an extremely successful career as a writer. His published works include the classic two-volume A History of the Sikhs, the novels Train to Pakistan, Delhi and The Company of Women, his autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice, and a number of translated works and non-fiction books on Delhi, nature, Sikh history and religion, and current affairs. Khushwant Singh was Member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. Among other honours he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 by the President of India (he returned the decoration in 1984 in protest against the Union Government’s siege of the Golden Temple, Amritsar).

Rafiq Zakaria is one of India's leading Muslim leaders and an internationally known scholar on Indian Politics and Islam. He has been closely associated with India's freedom struggle and has spent over 25 years in public service as a Cabinet Minister and then as deputy leader of the ruling Congress party in Indian Parliament. He has also represented India abroad, including the United Nations thrice (1965, 1990 and 1996). A lawyer by training, Dr. Zakaria is one of India's most distinguished writers and commentators.