Rahul N Ram was born in Delhi in 1963. His personal acquaintance with protest music started off in his childhood with songs of the Indian People’s Theatre Association. He first encountered contemporary protest music during a trip to Garhwal in 1980 with songs sung by the Chipko Andolan. He heard several international protest songs during his years as a doctoral student at Cornell University, USA during the late sixties. Rahul’s five years as an activist with the Narmada Bachao Andolan in the early 90s taught him a lot of protest songs, some of which he continued to perform with Indian Ocean, the band he has been part of for the last 22 years. Rahul is the bass player and vocalist for Indian Ocean, and has also sung for several Bollywood films. This year, he was one of the mentors for Saregamapa, a premier singing show on Indian TV . He will speak on “Contemporary Protest Music”