Bhakti (also spelled Bhakthi, Sanskrit: भक्ति) in Hinduism and Buddhism is religious devotion in the form of active involvement of a devotee in worship of the divine. Within monotheistic Hinduism, it is the love felt by the worshipper towards the personal God, a concept expressed in Hindu theology as Iṣṭa-devatā (also as Svayam Bhagavan in Gaudiya Vaishnavism).

Bhakthi can be used of either tradition of Hindu monotheism, Shaivaism or Vaishnavism. While bhakti as designating a religious path is already a central concept in the Bhagavad Gita, it rises to importance in the medieval history of Hinduism, where the Bhakti movement saw a rapid growth of bhakti beginning in Southern India with the Vaisnava Alvars (6th-9th century CE) and Saiva Nayanars (5th-10th century CE), who spread bhakti poetry and devotion throughout India by the 12th-18th century CE. The Bhagavata Purana is text associated with the Bhakti movement which elaborates the concept of bhakti as found in the Bhagavad Gita.

The Bhakti movement reached North India in the Delhi Sultanate and throughout the Mughal era contributed significantly to the characteristics of Hinduism as the religion of the general population under the rule of a Muslim elite. Its influence also spread to other religions during this period,^{[clarification needed]} and became an integral aspect of Hindu culture and society in the modern era.

Anuradha Paudwal is a popular playback singer in Bollywood in India. She has sung songs in Hindi, Marathi, Oriya, and Nepali.

She studied at Xavier's College in Mumbai. She was married to the late Arun Paudwal, who worked with music director S. D. Burman as his assistant. Her singing career started in 1973 with the movie, Abhimaan, (starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan) in which she sang a Shloka (a Sanskrit verse). In the same year she also made her Marathi film debut with "Yashoda" (music by Datta Davjekar). In 1974, she brought out a record of Non-film Marathi songs or "bhav geeten" which became very popular.

In 1976, she got her break as a playback singer in Hindi films with Kalicharan (starring Shatrughan Sinha and Reena Roy). Her first solo was in the movie, Aap Beati, (starring Hema Malini and Shashi Kapoor). Laxmikant-Pyarelal were the music-composer duo for that movie. She also occasionally sang songs for composers Rajesh Roshan (Des Pardes), Jaidev (Dooriyan, Laila Majnu), Kalyanji Anandji (Kalaakar, Vidhaata), and Usha Khanna (Souten, Sajan Bina Suhagan).

Udit Narayan Jha, popularly known as Udit Narayan is a playback singer in commercial, Maithili language, Hindi, Kannada, Nepali, Urdu, Bhojpuri, Garhwali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Oriya, Assamese, Maithili and Bengali language cinema. Narayan has sung in 32 different languages. He has won three National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards. In 2009, he was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.

Udit Narayan Jha was born on 1 December 1955 in a village called Bhardaha in the Saptari district, Nepal. His father was Hare Krishna Jha and his mother was Bhuwaneshwari Devi.

Narayan studied at P.B. School, Rajbiraj, where he passed his S.L.C.(class 10) and later obtained his intermediate from Ratna Rajya Laxmi Campus, mostly known as RR campus Kathmandu.

Udit Narayan began his career in Nepal singing for Radio Nepal as a staff artiste for Maithili and Nepali folk songs. He sang many popular nepali folk, modern songs in Radio Nepal. His first filmy playback singing was for Nepali film Sindur.It was a comedy song for famous nepali comedians (Late) GopalRaj Mainali (Chankhe) and Basundhara Bhushal (Nakkali). It was a duet song with Sushmaa Shrestha now known as Poornima in Hindi film Industry. After eight years in that role, Indian Embassy offered him the chance to study classical music at a prestigious school in Bombay, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan on a music scholarship. He moved to Bombay in 1978.

Gulshan Kumar (गुलशन कुमार) (5 May 1956 - 12 August 1997) was the founder of the T-Series music label (Super Cassettes Industries Ltd.), and an Indian Bollywood movie producer. T series is now run by his son Bhushan Kumar. His daughter Tulsi Kumar is a playback singer.

Born Gulshan Dua into a Punjabi Hindu Arora family, he was the son of Chandrabhan, a fruit juice seller in Darya Ganj market in Delhi, where he started working early on. Later Gulshan changed career paths when his family acquired a shop selling records and cheap audio cassettes, this was the beginning of what was to become a vast music empire.

He founded Super Cassettes Industries, a small audio cassette operation which soon grew to be very big. Later he started a music production company in Noida, near Delhi. He is said to have started the practice of exploiting a loophole in the Indian copyright law, and creating cover versions of popular songs.

To counter relatively expensive audio tapes which used to be marketed by reputed music companies, Gulshan brought out in the late 1970s very cheaply made and low priced music cassettes. He exported quality music cassettes when his business grew.

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (February 25, 1950 – June 27, 2005) (previously known as John Favors and Toshombe Abdul), also known as Swami Krishnapada, was a leading guru and governing body commissioner of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (commonly known as the Hare Krishnas or ISKCON). He was the highest-ranking African American in ISKCON. Bhakti Tirtha Swami met with prominent world figures such as Nelson Mandela and Zambia's president Kenneth Kaunda, was frequently interviewed in the media, wrote 17 books on religious topics and led community development projects in the United States and other countries. He was the founder and director of the Institute for Applied Spiritual Technology in Washington, DC, "a nonprofit, nondenominational organization whose membership represents a variety of spiritual paths and professional backgrounds". He traveled the world constantly and served as a spiritual consultant. He also served as chairman of the Third World Coalition. On February 7, 2006 the Council of the District of Columbia recognized "His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha Swami Krishnapada for dedication to social change that has impacted civil and human rights for residents in the District of Columbia".