Abstracts:
The murder of the Kannada journalist/editor, and activist, GauriLankesh, is an instance (among several others) of what we appear to havenormalized in a gaspingly short span of time. Arguably, fearless expression of dissent was something that intellectuals (if not everyone else) took forgranted in Indian polity. This is now, by many accounts, met withsystematic impatience as indeed intolerance.
Yet, it perhaps opens up more urgent questions of: what was tolerated andwhy? what has changed? what is it about the 'regional' (or even the'vernacular' - the expression of the  slave)intellectual/writer/activist that appears to not only bother but also provoke enough to silence/kill? what kind of the regional that bothers andprovokes?

what are specific regional avatars that allow and condone suchsilencing?These are some of the questions that do not make Gauri Lankesh's killing aspectacle but force us to confront the architecture of the normal. It issome of these that the panel will want to arrive at by focusing on regional press, politics and activism, and the very possibility of dissent.

Ms. Disha K. R, while pursuing graduation from Bangalore University,became part of a women's group which brought out a Kannada magazine'Manasa patrike' with which she worked for almost a year and half. It was the first feminist monthly magazine in Karnataka. After post-graduation,she worked for 6 months with the National Law School, Bangalore for aresearch project on the mid-day meal scheme, and thereafter with TANDA, TISS which works with NT-DNT communities. Currently she is pursuing MPhilat TISS, Mumbai.

Dr. Vijayakumar M. Boratti teaches English in the University EveningCollege, University of Mysore. Currently, he is working on colonialhistory of Kannada folklore. He has been a regular contributor to the Gauri Lankesh Patrike.

Mr Chittibabu Padavala is pursuing his doctoral research at the Departmentof H&SS, IIT Bombay. He was formerly a journalist working in the Telugumainstream media (ETV, Andhra Jyothi, The Hindu, Frontline) and in publishing (after he left activism in revolutionary movement in AndhraPradesh). He will play a double-role - of the moderator and a panelist.