Monali Thakur is an Indian playback singer and actress. Through her successful singing career, she has received one National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer for the song "Moh Moh Ke Dhaage" and the Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer for the song "Sawaar loon". She was born on 3 November 1985 in Kolkata, India. She comes from a musical family. Her father Shakti Thakur is a Bengali singer and also an actor. Her sister Mehuli Thakur Goswami is also a known professional playback singer. Monali Thakur was a music enthusiast from her childhood days as she got a musical environment and it always helped her stay devoted to music and make it large in life. Once she realized that she has to be a singer, she wowed to become a music professional in future.

Monali Thakur started off her singing career by singing in school and college competitions and various local functions. However, it was the singing reality TV show, Indian Idol season-2 on Sony Entertainment Channel that gave her the perfect platform to scale up on the popularity chart and showcase her uniqueness as a quality singer. She was placed ninth in the contest. Most of the judges of the show like Sonu Nigam, Farah Khan and Anu Malik liked the way she belted out several numbers. After she was eliminated from the show, ace music director Anu Malik offered to help her build a singing career and as a result gave her a chance to sing for the movie 'Jaan-E-Man'. After seeing her performance she was later sing song named "Zara Zara Touch Me" and "Khwab Deke Jhuthe Muthe" in movie "Race". Apart of being singing she was also working as an actress in movies. She was recently as an actress in bollywood movie "PK" playing the role of Kashmiri Girl.