- 10rd Sup 2026
A friend asked recently who's actually worth catching at OCLF Nagpur 2026, and it turns out the full speaker list is a lot more interesting than a quick scroll suggests. This year's edition, the eighth one, runs November 20 to 22, and the lineup mixes a former army chief, a man who does math tricks on stage for fun, and a political biographer who gets people to spill things they probably shouldn't. A weird mix. A good mix, though.
This isn't every single speaker; there are far too many for that. Just the ones worth circling, for one reason or another — some obvious, some less so.
General Manoj Naravane
General Manoj Naravane ran the Indian Army as Chief of Army Staff, and from his interviews, he doesn't do the careful, rehearsed version most officials give. He talks about real pressure, actual decisions, and what it's like when there's no good option left and you still have to pick something. Get there early for this one — it's going to fill up fast.
Manish Tewari
Here's a speaker who refuses to stay in one lane. Union Minister at one point, practising lawyer, author on the side, and somehow none of it feels like a resume he's reciting. In panel discussions he moves from constitutional law to media ethics to a random story about parliament, all in about five minutes, without ever sounding scattered.
R. Gopalakrishnan
This name might not ring a bell right away, but stick with it. Ramabadran Gopalakrishnan spent decades near the top of some of India's biggest companies, and he's written a fair bit about leadership since stepping back from all that. Ever wonder what's actually said in a boardroom right before a big corporate announcement hits the news? He's been in that room, more than once.
Dr Pawan Sinha
He's spoken at OCLF before, and people keep going back, which says something on its own. Dr Pawan Sinha pulls leadership lessons out of the Mahabharata, a lot of it built around Krishna, and somehow makes it feel useful for something as mundane as dealing with a difficult coworker. A premise that sounds unlikely until it works better than expected.
Vishnu Som
Vishnu Som is a familiar face on television, but a festival setting lets him sit with an idea instead of squeezing it into ninety seconds before a commercial break. Defence, foreign policy, and how Indian news itself has changed over the years — he covers a lot without rushing any of it.
Lakshmi Iyer
Finance sessions at literature festivals can lose an audience fast, but Lakshmi Iyer is the exception. She explains markets in a way that doesn't assume you already know half the vocabulary walking in, which sounds like a low bar until you realise how rarely people actually clear it.
Dr Nilesh Oak
This one's going to spark arguments, and that's part of the fun of it. Dr Nilesh Oak uses astronomical data to argue that the Mahabharata and Ramayana happened far earlier than mainstream history accepts. Right or not, the audience always has opinions about it, loudly, which makes for a lively session either way.
Bahar Dutt
No sugarcoating with Bahar Dutt, ever. Her environmental reporting goes straight into the messy stuff — land disputes, policies that read great on paper and fall apart the second they hit the ground, and the friction between conservation work and the people whose lives get upended by it. Not always a comfortable listen, but honest.
Narayani Ganesh
After a full day of politics, finance, and arguments about ancient timelines, Narayani Ganesh's session feels like finally exhaling. She sits somewhere between journalism and spiritual writing, with a steadiness that's rare on a festival stage these days.
Rasheed Kidwai
For anyone into political history backed by actual receipts, Rasheed Kidwai delivers. His biographies read like someone convinced half of Delhi to talk off the record and then wrote it all down anyway. His sessions tend to pull in the crowd that shows up with a notebook already flipped open.
Preeti Shenoy
Probably the most commercially recognisable name on this list. Preeti Shenoy writes about relationships and personal growth, and her readership, especially the younger crowd, is fiercely loyal. Fair warning — the signing line after her session gets very long. Bring water, maybe a snack.
Mitra Phukan
Indian lit fests lean heavily toward Delhi and Mumbai voices, so it's genuinely nice to see Mitra Phukan on this year's roster. She writes out of Assam, and her work brings in identity and community themes that don't get enough room on the bigger national stages.
Gaurav Tekriwal
A nice change of pace from everything else. Gaurav Tekriwal, better known as "Mr Vedic Maths", runs live sessions where he makes maths genuinely fun to watch. A good palate cleanser if the heavier topics start weighing on you by afternoon.
Why This Lineup Actually Works
What keeps pulling people back to OCLF Nagpur year after year is how it refuses to be just one kind of thing. A national security discussion in the morning, an argument about ancient astronomy right after that, a finance talk before lunch, and then a novelist by evening who leaves the room a little teary. That's not random scheduling — somebody clearly thought hard about pacing the day so it never goes flat.
One practical note: check the schedule again closer to the actual dates. Timings shift around more than expected, especially near the bigger names, and seats disappear fast once word gets around that a session's worth catching. Nobody wants to be the person standing outside a packed hall wishing they'd left ten minutes earlier.
Final Thoughts
There's an idea floating around that literature festivals are only for people who've read every book on some imaginary required list. OCLF Nagpur 2026 doesn't really operate that way. Whether you're there for the political history, the environmental reporting, the quieter spiritual sessions, or the novelist who's going to wreck your Saturday afternoon a little bit, there's genuinely something worth showing up for. Just don't cut it close on timing — the good seats go fast, every single year, without fail.