Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail (Marathi: अझहरुद्दीन मोहाम्मद इस्मैल) (born 1998) is an Indian child actor, who played the youngest version of Salim Malik in the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008), for which he won a Screen Actors Guild Award. Following the film's success, he has been cast in the Bollywood film Kal Kisne Dekha (2009).

Like his on-screen character, Azaruddin comes from one of the slums of Mumbai, living in the Garib Nagar slum near Bandra station. According to The Daily Telegraph, "his family's illegal hut was demolished by the local authorities and he now sleeps under a sheet of plastic tarpaulin with shortly afterwards in September 2009.

His casting in Slumdog Millionaire proved controversial with the producers admitting they debated whether to use real slum kids in the film fearing it would distort their lives too much. Director Danny Boyle justified the casting saying: "These people have so much prejudice against them, why should we be prejudiced against them as well?"

Muhammad Ismail Agha is an Afghan national who at age 12-13 (estimated) was arrested by Afghan militia soldiers, who traded him to U.S. forces in December 2002, for only $10 US dollars. He is one of many juveniles held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps. Some sources refer to him as the youngest child held at the camps.

Agha was detained at Bagram Air Base, then transferred to Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was released on January 29, 2004 and returned home to Nawzad, Afghanistan. During this time he was held in solitary confinement and subjected to sleep deprivation and stress position.

"Whenever I started to fall asleep, they would kick at my door and yell at me to wake up," he told an Amnesty researcher. "They made me stand partway, with my knees bent, for one or two hours."

In an interview in National Review, Agha and his family stated that he was well-treated by the American troops and attended school during his incarceration.

"At first I was unhappy with the U.S. forces. They stole 14 months of my life, But later the Americans were so nice with me. They were giving me good food with fruit and water for ablutions before prayer."

Daniel "Danny" Boyle (born 20 October 1956) is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, Shallow Grave, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director. Boyle was presented with the Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award at the 2008 Austin Film Festival, where he also introduced that year's AFF Audience Award Winner Slumdog Millionaire. On 17 June 2010, it was announced that he will be the Artistic Director for the 2012 Olympic games opening ceremony.

Boyle was born on 20 October 1956 in Radcliffe, Lancashire, (now in the modern day metropolitan borough of Bury, Greater Manchester) into a working-class Irish Catholic family. His mother was from Ballinasloe in County Galway, and his father was born in England to an Irish family.

It was a very strict, Catholic family. I was an altar boy for eight years, I was supposed to be a priest and really, it was my mother's fondest wish that I would become one.

Christian Colson (born 15 September 1968 in Argentina), is a British film producer. He is best known as the producer of the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, for which he received numerous awards including the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for best picture.

Tahir Zaman (born March 6, 1969) is a former hockey player from Pakistan who had played in the 1992 Olympics. Zaman, who was team captain, later served as coach for the team and took part in the 2002 Olympics. Zaman also took part in the Olympic Solidarity Hockey Coaching Course as part of the International Hockey Federation's efforts to promote hockey in Asia. Tahir played a key role in 1994 world cup victory for Pakistan at sydney.