Free Word Lecture

Award-winning investigative journalist and opinion columnist, Rana Ayyub, delivers 2023’s inspirational Free Word Lecture, celebrating the political power of words to uphold free speech.

Author of the controversial Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up, Ayyub was previously an editor with Tehelka, an investigative magazine in India, and now a columnist for The Washington Post. She has reported on religious violence and extrajudicial killings by the state and insurgency.An outspoken critic of Narendra Modi’s government, Ayyub has also been the victim of widespread online trolling and received multiple death threats.

In this unmissable lecture, Ayyub explores the transformative and democratising power of words and the importance of freedom of expression.

About the Speaker

Rana Ayyub

Rana Ayyub is an Indian investigative journalist and a global opinions writer at the Washington Post. She has worked as a reporter, Editor and columnist with some of the leading publications in India and internationally. Her pieces appear in the Time, New York Times, Guardian, Atlantic and Foreign Policy and she has been profiled for the cover of the New Yorker. Rana’s work is focused on the marginalised and the oppressed, she advocates and reports about the fight against misinformation and the protection of democratic ideas.