Ms. Rachna Singh IRS (Retd)
Resume: Rachna Singh Co-Convener FG Music, Literature, Visual & Performing Arts
Rachna Singh is a writer, literary editor, and cultural curator with a doctoral degree in English Literature and three gold medals for academic excellence. Though awarded the prestigious Nehru Centenary Scholarship to pursue her PhD at Cambridge University, she chose to join the Indian Revenue Service in 1991. After a distinguished three-decade career—culminating as Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, Delhi—she opted for voluntary retirement to dedicate herself fully to literature and the arts.
In 2021, she founded The Wise Owl, an international literary and arts magazine that provides a vibrant platform for both established and emerging voices. The magazine is committed to inclusivity and diversity, championing writers and artists across languages, geographies, and genres.
She also serves as Advisor to the Language Panel Expert of the Lok Sabha Secretariat, mentoring its Research Associates, thereby extending her commitment to nurturing talent and fostering dialogue in the literary space.
Singh has been invited to speak at leading literary festivals including the Jaipur Literature Festival, Khushwant Singh Lit Fest, and Bangalore Literature Festival. She has also conducted numerous creative writing workshops in colleges across Chandigarh, inspiring young writers to find and refine their voice.
Through The Wise Owl, she curates and hosts literary soirées with distinguished poets and writers and leads The Wise Owl Poetry Collective, a unique multilingual initiative that celebrates poetry in English, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu. In its digital avatars, she hosts Kuch Tum Kaho Kuch Hum Kahein, a YouTube series that brings Hindi/Urdu poetry to wider audiences, and co-hosts FinEco Gupshup, a channel that simplifies financial and economic issues for lay audiences. The Wise Owl’s YouTube platform also features her insightful interviews with award-winning poets, writers, and filmmakers.
To further recognize and celebrate literary excellence, Singh and her co-founder have recently instituted The Wise Owl Literary Awards, honouring achievements in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.
Her own published works reflect her intellectual breadth and literary sensibility, spanning economics, technology, gender, and biography. They include Penny Panache, Financial Felicity, The Bitcoin Saga (Bloomsbury, 2019), Phoenix in Flames—which highlights the resilience of women across diverse walks of life—and most recently Raghu Rai: Waiting for the Divine, a compelling biography of the legendary photographer that offers rare insight into his personal, spiritual, and artistic journey. She also writes for international and national journals, magazines and newspapers.