At the time of this interview, Nitish Kumar was the former Chief Minister. Kumar had previous experience in governing from his work as a Minister in the Union Government of India. Before that, he briefly worked with the Bihar State Electricity Board, putting his Electrical Engineering degree from NIT Patna to use. Kumar belongs to the Janata Dal (United) political party in India, and has gained popularity by initiating a series of developmental reforms in the state of Bihar during his times as Chief Minister there. His supporters and fans nicknamed him “sushasan babu,” which roughly translates to “man of good governance.”

At the time of this interview, Subhash Das was principal secretary of the Home and Political departments for the government of Assam in India. He held this position since September 2007 and generally dealt with issues of internal security and police administration. From 2004 until 2007, he served as the chairman of the Assam State Electricity Board. Before that, he worked in the industries department, the agriculture department, the education department and the planning department.

At the time of this interview, Anup Mukerji was the development commissioner for the government of Bihar.  He also served as the head of the Investment Promotion Board and other development committees that encouraged direct investment, private sector investment, and investment in infrastructure. In May 2006, he became the principal secretary of rural development, a position he held until May 2009.  

At the time of this interview, Shri Himanta Biswa Sarma was the minister of health for the government of Assam state in India, and he also ran the Guwahati Development Department. He held various positions and roles during more than a decade of service to the government of Assam. In 2002, he was appointed as the minister of state in charge of agriculture, planning and development before becoming the minister of finance in Assam in 2004.

At the time of this interview, Rajeev Chawla was the managing director of the Karnataka State Cooperative Marketing Federation in India. From 2003 to 2007 he held the position of Special Secretary of Bhoomi, the government’s largest and highly successfully e-governance project, digitizing and computerizing access to rural land records. He won a number of national and international awards for the project. Chawla designed and began implementation of the project as joint secretary of revenue for the State of Karnataka, a position he held from 1998 to 2003. Chawla was also commissioner of service, settlement, and land records from 2008 to 2010. He was a member of the Indian Administrative Service for over two decades. Chawla earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, in 1984.

At the time of this interview, M.N. Vidyashankar was the principal secretary of e-governance for the state of Karnataka, India.  Vidyashankar previously worked as chairman of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewage Board, chief electoral officer of Karnataka, commissioner of the Bangalore Development Authority, and principal secretary of Information Technology, Biotechnology, and Science Technology.  Vidyashankar received a master’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in philosophy from the Delhi School of Economics at the University of Delhi and also completed a master’s degree in business administration at Harvard Business School.

Jayanta Madhab is an economist who served as an advisor to the chief minister of Assam, India, from 2003 to early 2009. During his time in government he advised the chief minister on economic and financial affairs before taking up the mandate of employment generation in Assam in the chief minister’s second term. He has worked for the Asian Development Bank, as well as the North Eastern Development Finance Corporation (NEFDI). He holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.

At the time of the interview,  Alok Shukla had served as a deputy election commissioner in the Election Commission of India for around two years. He had previously served as the chief electoral officer for the state of Chhattisgarh. 

At the time of the interview, S.K. Mendiratta was the legal advisor to the Election Commission of India. He began his career nearly 46 years earlier as an assistant in the Election Commission. Beginning in 1979, Mendiratta was responsible for all legal affairs of the commission, including electoral reform legislation and litigation work of the commission before the Supreme Court and High Courts in India. Although he had been retired for 13 years at the time of the interview, Mendiratta continued much of his work in an advisory position. 

Trained in engineering and management at Michigan Technological University, Shri Baijayant "Jay" Panda returned to India to run his family's company. That experience in the private sector motivated him to affect change by entering the political life. He is one of the founding members of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) party. He served in the Upper House of the Indian Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, for nine years. He is currently the representative for the constituency of Kendrapara (Orissa) in the lower house, the Lok Sabha.