Speaker
Sh. Arup Kumar Dutta
Padma Shri Author, Pioneer of NE English Writing
Shri Arup Kumar Dutta is an internationally acclaimed author, journalist, and social commentator from Assam, widely regarded as a pioneer of English writing in India's North-East. Over five decades he has written forty books spanning fiction, non-fiction, adventure, and satire, among them The Kaziranga Trail (1978), The Blind Witness (1983), Unicornis (1991), The Brahmaputra (2001), Cha Garam: The Tea Story (2001), The Roving Minstrel (2002), The Anagarika's Swansong (2009), The Bag (2018), The Ahoms (2022), and Saint, Saviour, Soul, Society (2024). He has been awarded the Padma Shri (2018), honorary D.Litt. degrees from Dibrugarh and Gauhati Universities, and the Madhavdev Award (2022).