Condemning the West Bengal government for failing to provide security to writer Salman Rushdie, octogenarian Magsaysay award winning author Mahasweta Devi on Thursday said the fiasco had demeaned the prestige of the city.
Government on Tuesday ruled out barring Salman Rushdie from visiting India in the wake of a demand by a top Islamic seminary to cancel his visa even as the controversial author said he does not need a visa to come to this country.
Expressing his concerns about India under Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party, India-born author Salman Rushdie said that the attacks on freedom of expression could worsen if the Bharatiya Janata Party comes to power.
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.
Having tied the knot four times himself, controversial Indian-origin writer Salman Rushdie says he doesn't think marriage is necessary. Attacking the institution of marriage, Rushdie said he did not believe in it and that women rushed to the altar only because they wanted to wear a 'wedding dress'. The author of The Satanic Verses has been married four times, most recently to Padma Lakshmi, from whom he split last year.
The resolution demanded withdrawal of the title, saying that the decision has hurt sentiments of the Muslims across the world.
The Booker Of Booker winner will now have to compete against 41 others vying for the new Best of the Booker award.
Rushdie, who faced flak from Muslim leaders across the world for his 1988 book Satanic Verses, is presently in the city and staying at the residence of industrialist Adi Godrej in suburban Juhu.
Rushdie has been awarded for his services to Literature in the Queen's Birthday Honours List, which recognises the achievements of 19 other NRIs as well.
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.
The justification came in the wake of threats issued by Al Qaeda's deputy chief to punish the United Kingdom for honouring Rushdie.
Sir Salman has been spotted with a new companion, screenwriter Patrice Jorden.
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".
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.
Opposing controversial author Salman Rushdie's visit to India, Islamic Seminary Darul Uloom Deoband on Monday said the government should cancel his visa as he had hurt religious sentiments of Muslims in the past.
Now comes word of a relationship with the impossibly long-limbed, strikingly beautiful Pia Glenn, who plays Condoleezza Rice in Will Ferrell's Broadway show, 'You're Welcome, America: A Final Night With George W. Bush.'
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.
Twenty four years after he shot off an open letter to the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi criticising the ban on The Satanic Verses, India-born controversial author Salman Rushdie now admits that his reaction was "arrogant", "angry" and "cheek".
Controversial India-born British author Salman Rushdie was knighted by the Queen Elizabeth on Wednesday for his "services to literature." Muslims around the world had condemned the award when it was announced last year in the Monarch's Birthday Honours list.
Eminent British Indian author Salman Rushdie has attacked the "mangled" language of religion, which is turning British Muslims towards extremism.
In a rejoinder to an article in The Independent, they said, The British media stories are untrue. We are still very much a couple.
What's in a name? A lot. At least writer Salman Rushdie believes so. The renowned novelist took to Twitter on Monday night to slam social networking website Facebook for deactivating his account over confusion about his real name.
In a letter to The Guardian, Rushdie, who last week won the Best of the Bookers award, said that he had broken wine writer Malcolm Gluck's record for book signings. Gluck's claimed his record is 1,001 copies in 59 minutes, set at a wine warehouse in London in 1998.
The author has signed on to star in the new romantic comedy titled Then She Found Me, after successfully auditioning for the part. The movie will be directed by Helen Hunt, and marks her directorial debut.
Opposing the knighthood of writer Salman Rushdie, a forum of Muslim journalists on Wednesday asked the British government to withdraw it.
The archive, including personal diaries written during the decade that he spent living in hiding from Islamic extremists, is being bought by the Emory University in Athlanta.
Disappointed at Salman Rushdie not attending the Jaipur Literature Festival, Pulitzer prize-winning author David Remnick has said the "persecution" meted out to the India-born writer is an "outrage" against free expression.
Two days after he scrapped his plans to attend the Jaipur Literature Festival citing threats to his life, an "angry" Salman Rushdie on Sunday charged that he was lied to by the Rajasthan police, who "invented" a plot to keep him away from the event.
Rushdie warns Muslims that their culture will be 'hijacked' by extremists if they don't speak up.
As Gordon Brown prepares to succeed Prime Minister Tony Blair, the naming of Rushdie in the honours list and subsequent events have created the impression of a clueless party.
A woman, awarded post-doctoral fellowship on the novels of controversial author Salman Rushdie, has decided not to go ahead with it following objections from Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband.
The entire event suggests that in India democracy is decreasing and psephocracy is increasing, says Ashis Nandy, who spoke to rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
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.
Booker-prize winning British author Ian McEwan, a close friend of Salman Rushdie, had offered the latter a place to hide when a death decree was issued against the controversial Indian-origin author by Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini.A detailed profile of the Atonement author in the New Yorker reveals that for a few days following the death sentence issued by Khomeini in February 1989, Rushdie had taken refuge at McEwan's cottage in Cotswolds, in central England.
India-born controversial author Salman Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children' has established an unassailable lead over five other contenders in global public voting for the Best of the Booker award.
Muslim cleric, Maulana Arshad Madani, on Tuesday backed Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband''s appeal to the Central government to cancel the visa of acclaimed author Salman Rushdie, stating that he has hurt the sentiments of the Muslims in the past.
A free and civilised society should be judged by its willingness to accept it, he says.
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