Sudheendra Kulkarni, a noted socio-political activist in India, is Chairman of the Observer Research Foundation, a leading non-partisan public policy think tank, in Mumbai. An alumnus of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, he started his political career with the Communist Party of India (Marxist), but later joined the BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) in 1996. Between 1998 and 2004, he served as a close aide to former Indian Prime Minister AtalBihari Vajpayee in the Prime Minister’s Office. He also worked as the National Secretary of the BJP, and as secretary to Lal Krishna Advani, India’s former Deputy Prime Minister and former president of the BJP. He resigned from the BJP in 2013 on grounds of ideological differences. Kulkarni is a leading columnist and political commentator in the Indian media. He is the author of the acclaimed book Music of the Spinning Wheel: Mahatma Gandhi’s Manifesto for the Internet Age (2012). The book explores, for the first time, the unique theme of the philosophical and practical interconnection between the epoch-changing potential of the Digital Age and Gandhi’s universally relevant credo of Truth, Nonviolence and Global Brotherhood. Kulkarni has also written two books on Swami Vivekananda, a revolutionary spiritual leader who presented the true meaning of Hinduism to the world. Kulkarni is currently involved in the mission to promote harmonisation of Hindu-Muslim relations and normalisation of India-Pakistan relations. He is also closely associated with efforts to promote mutual understanding, trust and cooperation between India and China. In collaboration with the University of Mumbai, he is currently engaged in a project to establish the JiXianlin Centre for India-China Studies. Born in 1957, Kulkarni lives in Mumbai with his wife Dr. KamaxiBhate and daughter Tapas.