Manish Tiwary is from Bihar, India. He was educated at Cambridge University, UK, and Yale University, USA. Manish has worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome, Nepal and India and has published articles concerning political ecology in the Economic and Political Weekly of India. His monograph titled, Participatory Forest Policies and Politics in India: Joint Forest Management Institutions in Jharkhand and West Bengal was published by Ashgate, UK.

Manish's primary interest, however, lies in cinema. He used to run the film society at Cambridge, and has made two feature length documentary films (Ramnagar, and Lo Manthang) and several shorts. Dil Dosti Etc (Love Etc) is Manish Tiwary's first feature-length film based on an original story by him. Manish was nominated for the best debut director award in IIFA and Percept's Salaam-E-Comedy awards for Dil Dosti Etc.