The Other Contenders for Forbes India 30 Under 30

ART & CULTURE
Shanay Jhaveri | 28
Art Curator
Jhaveri is among the most influential voices on modern and historic Indian art. He straddles the art worlds of Mumbai and London and has curated shows for the prestigious Palais de Tokyo in Paris and the UK’s Tate Modern. His work Questions of Travel was featured in the LUX/ICA Biennial of Moving Images in 2012. He was named one of the 10 most cutting-edge art curators of the world by premier art magazine Blouin ArtInfo in 2013. He’s also authored a book Western Artists and India: Creative Inspirations in Art and Design.
-    Sohini Mitter

Namit Das | 29
Theatre Actor / Composer
Audiences will remember him as Ranbir Kapoor’s endearing friend from Wake Up Sid but Das packs more punch on stage. He took to theatre in 2002 with Nadir Khan’s Thespo play The Shadow Box, and won praise for playing a closet gay in The President is Coming. He’s also composed music for Imogen Butler-Cole’s Much Ado About Nothing. But it was his singing performance in Sunil Shanbag’s Stories in a Song (2011) that left critics spellbound. Das believes “a performer’s life is long” and thus, dabbles in different mediums.
-    SM

Vicky Roy | 26
Photographer
Born in an impoverished family in Bengal, Roy fled home at the age of 11 and grew up collecting refuse on the streets of Delhi. Today his photographs mirror his ravaged childhood. His works Street Dreams and Apna Ghar have been exhibited at Delhi’s India Habitat Centre; his latest monograph Home Street Home, launched at the Delhi Photo Festival last year, chronicles life on the streets. Roy has also exhibited in New York in 2009, where he photo-documented the reconstruction of the World Trade Center.
-    SM

DESIGN
Subrata Pandey | 24
Co-founder, Punarnawa
A graduate from the Institute of Crafts and Design, Jaipur, Pandey founded Punarnawa along with Shaswat Mohanty at 21. Punarnawa supports traditional artisans and trains others as artisans, helping them establish small-scale industry and self help groups in both the textiles and non-textiles sector. She was selected as a Global Shaper for Bhubaneswar by the World Economic Forum.
– Benu Joshi Routh

Anjali Mody | 28
Furniture designer, Josmo
Anjali Mody launched her bespoke furniture studio Josmo at 26 after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design. Josmo incorporates minimal, modern and traditional influences into its work and adopts sustainable practices in production. The daughter of top corporate attorney Zia Mody and grand daughter of Soli Sorabjee, she is also co-founder of creative agency Skarma.
–    BJR

Rustom Mazda | 27
Designer, Pininfarina
An NID graduate, Mazda is an exterior and interior automotive designer. Currently based in Turin, Italy, working at Pininfarina, Mazda was part of the team that worked on the Ferrari 458 Speciale. He says his design philosophy is “creation born out of necessity, whether it is function-based aerodynamic, mechanical or cost”. Earlier Mazda interned at the Renault Design studio in Mumbai and Fiat Centro Stile in Italy.
–    Ashish K Mishra

Images: Aathira: indiatodayimages.com; Shanay: Jessie Chaney; Namit: Sachin Kadvekar / Fotocorp

ENTERTAINMENT
Richa Chadda | 25
Actress 
She scorched the screen as the fiery Nagma Khatoon in Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur, bagged several nominations and won the Filmfare Best Actress (Critics) award in 2013. One filmmaker hailed her as the “brightest spot in the AK camp” while another thinks she’s “one of the finest actresses of her time”. She proved her versatility in Fukrey, winning a Screen Award for Best Comic Role this year.
-SM

Arijit Singh | 26
Singer
Singh was a contestant in a reality show in 2005, but it was not until 2012, when Pritam gave him his first hit ‘Raabta’ in Agend Vinod, that he found his feet in Bollywood. He followed it up with ‘Phir Le Aaya Dil’ in Barfi! (he won a Filmfare nomination) and ‘Kabira’ in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. He struck gold with ‘Tum Hi Ho’ in Aashiqui 2; one of 2013’s biggest chartbusters, it won him Best Male Playback at the 2014 Screen Awards.
-    SM

Shraddha Kapoor | 22
Actress
In 2010, Kapoor had the enviable distinction of debuting alongside Amitabh Bachchan and Ben Kingsley in Teen Patti. One of Bollywood’s many star kids, she garnered acclaim for her role in Aashiqui 2, and startled industry watchers when Vishal Bhardwaj signed her on for Haider, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Critics have hailed Kapoor’s confident screen presence; she has bagged some plum endorsement deals.
-    SM

Huma Qureshi | 27
Actress
Qureshi hit the ground running with her debut performance in Gangs of Wasseypur 2. She won critical acclaim for her role in Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana. But Dedh Ishqiya, which has been lauded as bold and gripping, proved to be one of the biggest testimonies to Qureshi’s acting prowess, as she held her own on screen with Naseeruddin Shah and Madhuri Dixit. She has also performed at a special event to raise funds for the flood-hit in Uttarakhand.
-    Kathakali Chanda

Alia Bhatt | 20
Actress
The youngest Bhatt of Bollywood made her debut in Karan Johar’s Student of the Year and impressed with her stylish portrayal of a high school diva. But it’s her de-glam avatar in Imtiaz Ali’s yet-to-be-released Highway that is the talk of the town. Bhatt makes her music debut in this movie with a Punjabi ballad by AR Rahman. She has bagged big-ticket ad endorsements like Garnier and Maybelline, and has walked the ramp as a showstopper in premier fashion shows.
-    KC

Images: Rajkummar Rao: Sachin Gokhale; Richa Chadda, Shraddha Kapoor: Getty Images Huma Qureshi, Alia Bhatt: Getty Images

FASHION
Masaba Gupta, 25
Fashion designer
Masaba Gupta’s style is fierce and bold, with a play on colours and cuts. Under the label ‘Masaba’, she showcased her first collection, ‘Kattran’, at Lakme Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2010 in the Gen Next category. She won the Most Promising Designer of the Year award there. Her label currently retails at over eight leading stores in India. The youngest creative director at Satya Paul, she is reinterpreting the brand with a refreshing twist.
-BJR

Ruchika Sachdeva, 26
Fashion designer
After graduating from London College of Fashion, Sachdeva moved to India to set up her own label, ‘Bodice’. In London, she worked with prestigious designers like Vivienne Westwood and Giles Deacon. Her label takes inspiration from menswear, history and other contemporary influences and translates them into androgynous garments with quixotic elements. She has won prestigious awards, including Elle India Style Award for ‘The Breakthrough Designer’, and the Grazia Young Fashion Award for ‘The Best Urban Collection’.
-BJR

FINANCE
Harsh Agarwal | 25
Founder, AGacquisitions
At 19, Harsh Agarwal had already made profits of Rs 50 lakh from investing in IFCI and Reliance Petroleum. Later, he worked with Deutsche Bank as one of the youngest to assist in managing assets over $75 million while advising global PE funds on their India investments. With brother Kanishka, he started AGacquisitions in 2013, a hedge fund in the long-short style. Arun Kumar, CEO, Strides Arcolab, says Agarwal has it in him to grow AGacquisitions into one of the largest hedge funds in India.
 – Pravin Palande

FOOD
Girish Nayak, 28
Pastry chef, Olive Beach, Bangalore
Nayak’s ‘coolest’ memories as a tot were framed sitting atop a kitchen shelf, from where he would watch his grandma bake. He’s come a long way since, putting himself through the Culinary Institute of America, New York, training under Johnny Iuzzini (Top Chef Just Desserts judge), washing dishes to make ends meet and learning the art of classic French desserts with a playful American touch. He returned in 2010 and joined Olive Beach where many diners are willing to skip a course to pack in a plate of his signature lemon mousse.
-    KC

Srishti Handa/ Siddhartha Kumar| 28/27
Directors, The Temperamental Chef
Handa and Kumar love to serve up oxymorons: Ready-to-eat vegetarian snacks minus preservatives. They want urban homes to drop those potato nuggets, and bite into baked spinach bolts. After three years as marketing manager in a frozen food company, Handa launched TTC in December 2012. Kumar, who works and lives in Singapore, is the investor and mastermind behind most recipes. The duo has outsourced production to cut costs, but Handa handles all other aspects—distribution, marketing, logistics—herself. She sells in Delhi/NCR, and is looking to move to western India this year.
-    KC

Image: Girish Nayak: Kunal Chandra

LAW, POLICY & POLITICS
Arghya Sengupta | 29
Founder and research director, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy
How does one explain the Nuclear Liability Bill to a group of MPs? In 2010, Arghya Sengupta was called upon to do just that. That small step laid the foundation for the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. His aim: To make the legislative and regulation phase in lawmaking more robust so that fewer disputes arise. Sengupta graduated with a gold medal from that National Law School in Bangalore. He went to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship, where he went on to do his masters and a PhD in judicial independence and accountability.
-SS

NGOs & SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Shubhendu Sharma| 29
director, Afforestt Environmental Conservation Services
This innovative company creates natural forests using native trees. Using the Miyawaki Method, which makes forests grow ten times faster than normal plantations, Afforestt creates dense self-sustaining forests in just a few years, in spaces as small as 1,000 sq ft.
It has created more than 100,000 sq ft of forests in three years.
-    Udit Misra & Peter Griffin

Jithin C Nemudala | 27
CEO, Make a Difference (MAD)
This commerce graduate has worked with the orphaned since 2005. MAD is India’s largest NGO mentoring orphans, with 2,000 volunteers teaching 5,000 kids across 23 cities. Two alumni have earned scholarships for graduate studies in the US and two more will soon join them. MAD also works on influencing policy required to ensure better-run orphanages. MAD is endorsed by Michelle Obama.
-    UM & PG

SOCIAL MEDIA / MOBILE / DIGITAL
Deepan Chakravarthy,   Ramprasad Rajendran | 29, 29
Co-founders, Sudoku Quest
Their social mobile gaming company Hashcube, maker of Facebook game Sudoku Quest and several mobile apps, garnered 2.5 million users in just three years. Adopting a ‘freemium’ business model, they allow in-app purchases to make money and have clocked $100,000 as revenue. They now plan to take the Quest model to other classic games such as Minesweeper and Solitaire. “If safe money is your criteria then go for a job, but the huge upside of getting money and making it successful is never offered in a job,” says Chakravarthy.
–    Deepak Ajwani

Angad Nadkarni | 20
Founder Examify
Nadkarni built Examify in January 2013 out of sheer frustration after he found himself running about to attend different tuition classes. He already has 10,000 users for the free web-app that offers prep-tests for class 10, 12 exams and IIT-JEE. The service analyses last 10 years’ question papers to recommend the most probable questions. It also offers regular prep-tests. Nadkarni is now planning a virtual paid marketplace where teachers can sign up to offer study material and test papers; students rate them based on their satisfaction level.
DA

Images: Shubhendu Sharma: Naresh Sharma; Shubhendu: Nimish Jain

Along with Saina Nehwal, Arjuna awardee PV Sindhu is leading the charge of Indian shuttlers on the global stage. She broke into the top 10 in 2013, and currently stands at 11. P Gopichand’s exploits on the court inspired the lanky Andhra teen to pick up her racket when she was eight, but she overtook her mentor in a decade, becoming India’s first woman and the first since Prakash Padukone in 1983 to win a medal (bronze) at the World Championships.
-KC

Deeya Bajaj | 19
Cross-country skier
Deeya Bajaj has conquered the mountains with as much élan as she has conquered the seas. A certified scuba diver and kayaker, she braved sub-zero conditions at 14 when she tagged along with her father on a kayaking expedition in Greenland. She returned to the stubborn ice caps at 17 and became the youngest person to undertake the Trans Greenland Skiing Expedition; in the process, she raised funds for an orphanage in Uttarakhand.
–    KC

Shiva Thapa | 20
Boxer
The bantamweight is a medal hope for the 2016 Rio Olympics after he became the youngest Indian boxer to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics. His impressive medals haul led to him being poached by the USA Knockouts, a franchise in the World Series of Boxing tournament. He’s already a major force in the Asian scene. He’ll need to learn to take big hits from stronger men if he wants to compete on the world stage. At just 20, time is on his side.
–    SB

P Harikrishna | 27
Chess Player
India’s No. 2 Chess player is used to being compared to Vishwanathan Anand—his win percentage is 61 percent to Anand’s 61.6 and current world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen’s 61.3 percent. Hari, the 2011 Asian Champion, became India’s youngest Grandmaster in 2001, aged 15. Not surprisingly, the Junior World Champion and Arjuna awardee is getting better and better, with a rating of over 2700 (Anand’s is closer to 2800).
–    SB

Amit Kumar | 20
Wrestler
Sushil Kumar’s wrestling bronze medal at 2008 Beijing Olympics had a big part in propelling the profile of the sport in India. Now, agile Amit Kumar (55 kg), from humble Haryana beginnings, is taking on the world, shoulder to shoulder with Sushil. At London 2012, he became the youngest wrestler to represent India at the Olympics and won silver at last year’s World Championships in Budapest. Ten years of hard work are starting to pay off.
–    SB

Images: Gaganjeet Bhullar: Ross Kinnaird / Getty Images; PV Sindhu, Shiva Thapa: Getty Images Cheteshwar Pujara: Vivek Prakash / Reuters; P Harikrishna: The Hindu; Amit Kumar: Getty Images