Muslim groups on Wednesday softened their stand over the visit of Jeet Thayil, who read excerpts from banned book of Salman Rushdie during Jaipur Literature Festival last year, saying they have no objection provided the act is not repeated.
Leading Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband on Wednesday demanded that "controversial authors" be kept away from the Jaipur Literature Festival in the PinkCity.
Ahead of the Jaipur Literature Festival, Muslim groups on Monday warned organisers against inviting authors who hurt religious sentiments of the community, including the four who had read out passages from Salman Rushdie's banned Satanic Verses at the event last year.
The Booker prize winner and Hollywood stars mingled at a coffee table book launch.
After a raging row that forced Salman Rushdie to keep away last year, this year's Jaipur Literature Festival kicked off to a peaceful start amidst tight security with overriding sentiments favouring independent space for authors and the need to defend the freedom of speech.
Two months after being forced to skip the Jaipur Literary Festival, controversial author Salman Rushdie on Saturday hit out the Congress, suggesting that his presence there was blocked because of "useless electoral calculations". Participating in the India Today Conclave, he said India "deserves to be led by better leaders".
Three Indian films -- Midnight's Children, The Reluctant Fundamentalist and English Vinglish -- will be showcased at the festival.
Terming the entire Salman Rushdie episode in Jaipur as "shameful", Pulitzer prize winning author David Remnick has said it reflects "troubling tendencies" of contemporary Indian politics where retaining power is more important for the government than freedom of expression.
Ending the suspense, Jaipur Literature Festival organisers on Tuesday said that the video session with controversial author Salman Rushdie will take place as planned after Rajasthan government gave the go ahead.
Kavita Srivastava, national secretary of People's Union for Civil Liberties, has revealed that six complaints have been registered against four authors: Amitava Kumar, Hari Kunzru, Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Joshi, besides the organisers of the Jaipur Literture Festival, for hurting religious sentiments and conspiracy.
Muslim groups on Friday welcomed the cancellation of controversial author Salman Rushdie's visit to the Jaipur Literary festival and said their protest no longer stands.
With the help of colossal amount of Saudi oil money and partly the rise of the Ayotalollahs and Shia Islam there has spread this much harsher, more intolerant Islam, says internationally acclaimed writer Salman Rushdie in an interview with CNN-IBN.
With the help of colossal amount of Saudi oil money and partly the rise of the Ayotalollahs and Shia Islam there has spread this much harsher, more intolerant Islam, says internationally acclaimed writer Salman Rushdie in an interview with CNN-IBN.
Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses was banned by India four months before Iran's Supreme leader late Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa for his killing without any proper examination or a judicial process, writes the controversial author in his memoirs.
The literary and film community on Friday came out in support of controversial author Salman Rushdie and blamed the West Bengal government for cancellation of his visit to the metropolis.
Organisers of Kolkata Literary Meet and Kolkata Book Fair have denied British Indian novelist Salman Rushdie's statement on Friday that he was invited to be a part of the literary carnival and said he was 'lying'.
A Muslim cleric claimed on Friday that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had ordered Kolkata police to block the visit of controversial author Salman Rushdie to the metropolis on Wednesday at his instance.
Controversial author Salman Rushdie has said that he was forced to cancel his trip to Kolkata as he was told that the police would bundle him out in the next flight on instructions from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Controversies refuse to leave Salman Rushdie as the author who is in India to promote the movie adaptation of his novel Midnight's Children was initially forced to cancel and ultimately shift his press conference due to security reasons.
Here's what your favourite Bollywood celebrities are tweeting.
Here's what your favourite Bollywood celebrities are tweeting.
Furious over the cancellation of his video address to Jaipur Literature Festival, Salman Rushdie on Tuesday slammed the central and Rajasthan governments, saying the buck stops with it for the "awful" situation and questioned the commitment of Congress over the issue.
Several authors and artists on Tuesday voiced their outrage over the cancellation of a video address by Salman Rushdie at the Jaipur Literature Festival, accusing the Rajasthan government of "abject surrender" to threats of violence by "fringe elements".
Literary magazine Granta honours the best once in a decade.
Against the backdrop of the cancellation of video address by controversial writer Salman Rushdie at the Jaipur Literature Festival, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday said the entire episode had exposed the "worst communal vote-bank politics" of Congress.
When Truth dies along with it dies the 'Fabric of Trust' that holds nations and societies together. From raising dishonest questions over the Batla House encounter to raising false bogeys over the Rushdie visit, the Congress stands guilty of causing irreversible damage to that fabric of trust, says Shashi Shekhar.
The filmmaker recently tweeted a picture from the film.
Here's what your favourite celebrities are tweeting.
The Congress on Monday distanced itself from former Finance Minister P Chidambaram's statement that the banning of Salman Rushdie's controversial novel 'The Satanic Verses' by the Rajiv Gandhi government was wrong.
On a visit to India to film a documentary on 40 years of independence, author Salman Rushdie found Maharashtra politician Chhagan Bhujbal a 'walking political cartoon' and was amazed when he was denied permission to film a Sikh woman widowed in the 1984 riots.
Fans might want to revisit the book Midnight's Children instead of the film.
Besides Adiga, Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, 1981), Arundhati Roy (God of Small Things, 1997), and Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss, 2006) won the prize for India.
Attacking Salman Rushdie, Press Council of India Chairman Markandey Katju on Monday said that the "sensationalism" depicted by his book Satanic Verses has deeply hurt Muslim sensitivities and that an individual's freedom of speech has to harmonised with the public interest.
Writer Amitava Kumar speaks to Aseem Chhabra about life after he read from The Satanic Verses at the Jaipur Literary Festival.
Salman Rushdie is a "poor" and "sub-standard writer" who would have remained largely unknown but for his controversial book The Satanic Verses, according to Markandey Katju, till recently a judge of the Supreme Court.
The session was supposed to be the jewel in the crown of the Jaipur Literature Festival 2012 -- Salman Rushdie was to address the festival through a video link after weeks of anticipation and controversy. However, as time passed the possibility of the session happening itself came under serious doubt.
The raging controversy over author Salman Rushdie's visit to the Jaipur literary festival and the abrupt cancellation of a video link with the writer at the last minute on Tuesday evening refuses to die down. We reproduce an interview with Rushdie, when he visited India in 2000.
The development came a day after the India-born author accused the Rajasthan police of lying about a plot to eliminate him to keep him away from the festival, a charge dismissed by the state government which said Intelligence Bureau had given the inputs and it was not concocted.
In what could further stoke the Salman Rushdie controversy, a section of authors at the Jaipur Literature Festival on Friday launched a campaign demanding immediate lifting of the 23-year-old ban on the controversial writer's book The Satanic Verses.
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