Indian American writers remember 9/11

On 9/11, I was in the San Francisco bay area. I opened up my computer early in the morning, and on the MSN homepage was a video of the towers being attacked. I was in shock. At first I thought it was a simulation, or a hoax. Then I turned on the TV and heard the news. I just sat in front of the TV, stunned, for about half an hour while the same clips were being replayed. Then I couldn’t stand it anymore and turned it off. I remember feeling hollowed out.

By then the other hijacked planes had crashed as well. I felt terrible for all the lives lost unnecessarily. I felt terrible to think someone hated America (and us Americans) so much. I felt terrible because I was afraid of the violent aftermath that I guessed would follow. And of course it did — in terms of government retaliation, and also in the hate-crimes that swept across the nation aimed at anyone who seemed/looked Muslim.

Full report here Firstpost

I love Indian authors: Tahmima

Set in the aftermath of Bangladesh’s war of independence, author Tahmima Anam’s second novel The Good Muslim reflects her compassion for her country and the vicarious suffering she shares with her countrymen.

Second in the trilogy, The Good Muslim is a tale of a Bangladeshi family post independence; while the first book in the series A Golden Age, which was published in 2007, depicts the era of the war of independence against Pakistan in 1971.

“I was not born at the time of the war but I used to hear all these stories in our family. I did a lot of research, heard stories from my father, how he was trained in a camp in India... One of my uncles was a guerilla. I have tried to weave in bits of that into the character of Sohail in my book,” explains Tahmima.

Talking about what she likes to read, she says, “I love Indian authors. Amitav Ghosh and Anita Desai are my favourites… even some Pakistani writers. Also, there are some fabulous Bengali writers like Selina Hossain.”

Full report here DNA

"Tragedy helped me become a writer"

An experience with pain allows me to understand how other people are feeling

Aatish Taseer is a British-born writer and freelance journalist. The son of newspaper columnist Tavleen Singh and the assassinated former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, Salman Taseer, he grew up in New Delhi. Holding strong views on political heirs — be it in India or Pakistan — he says: "It's very bad and an attack on talent, hard work and merit." Aatish feels people are disappointed when the society rewards a person's family connections and class. "If that's the reason why people can hold high positions, it will ruin the environment," he says. His debut book, memoir-travelogue, Stranger to History: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands, published at the age of 29, was an insight into his uneasy relationship with his late father. Aatish's novel, The Temple Goers was the story of an individual trying to discover himself. Noon (Harper Collins), launched recently, is about a young man who grows up trying to create an identity that transcends the one divided across India and Pakistan.
The author speaks to Gulf News in an exclusive interview.

You wrote in Noon: "The gaps in my life were too many, the threads too few." Was this an inference to your personal life?
No in that the narrator is speaking. But yes, somebody in England also said to me recently that the way my book is structured, it is as if it's the shape of the way people's lives have started to look — with a lot of fracture, disruption and upheaval.
My life has certainly some of that element in it. But it could be true of me as to many more people.

How much of Noon is fact and what percentage is fiction?
It's hard to say that, because there are always characters, models and situations, which become the origin and give you the idea for a story. But the resemblances to my life are mainly superficial. The resemblance — this half Pakistani and half Indian narrative — makes people think that it is for real. It's not. For the large part it is fictional. There's only a crust of non-fiction.

Full interview here Gulf News

Portrait of a rebel

The Convert is about Maryam Jameelah who converted from Judaism to Islam and became a hard-line defender of Islamic values and culture.

The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism is about Maryam Jameelah, the well-known conservative and hard-line defender of Islamic values and culture, currently living in Lahore. She has been publishing books, articles, and pamphlets since the 1960s. Some of the recurring issues are “condemning Western efforts to influence the Muslim world or criticising the ill-begotten efforts of the modernising reformers of Islam” (p.84). The Convert is predominantly about the conversion of Margaret Marcus, as she was born, from Judaism to the Jamaat-e-Islami brand of Islamic ideology.

Margaret or “Peggy” Marcus was born in 1934, but did not begin to speak till she was four years old. By this time, her anxious parents, Myra and Herbert, had taken her to various psychiatrists. When she finally began to speak, it was in complete sentences. Very much like the apocryphal, but well-known story about Macaulay, whose first words were, “Madam, the agony is abated.” Her mother described Margaret as hyper-sensitive and of a nervous disposition, but “she was considered an exceptionally gifted young girl. Her paintings were always praised in school and she had a beautiful singing voice” (p.109). At the summer school, where she was happy learning how to dance, she was severely condemned by the director and requested not to return as she had no flair for the art. Likewise with her painting — upon being informed by Mawdudi that painting was not looked upon kindly in Islam, she gave up painting till the late 1990s. Later, she was unable to complete her course at the University of Rochester as she had a nervous breakdown. By the time she began her correspondence with Maulana Abdul Ala Mawdudi, founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami, she had been diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia and had had a “fifteen-month long stay at the New York Psychiatric Institute and later the Hudson River State Hospital” (p.125). The other correspondents included “mature Arab Muslim leaders deemed reactionary fanatics by the New York Times”, such as Sayyid Qutb of the Society of Muslim Brotherhood and Shaykh Muhammad Bashir Ibrahim, leader of the insurgency against France and a member of the Islamic clergy (p.140).

Full report here Hindu

Salman Rushdie pens kids' book

Salman Rushdie, the prize-winning Indian-born writer, has in the past based novels on the politics of India and Pakistan. But his latest book is for teenagers, and the inspiration — at least some of it — came from video games.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Rushdie said Luka and the Fire of Life, his new novel, was written as a birthday present for his 13-year-old son, Milan.

The book, a fable about a young boy's adventures as he tries to save his father's life, is the second novel Rushdie has written for children. His first, "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," was written for his older son, Zafar, in 1989, as Rushdie was under threat of death.

Earlier that year, Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had issued a religious edict, or fatwah, ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie, saying his novel "The Satanic Verses" had insulted Islam.

The new book, Rushdie said Friday, Oct 8 drew inspiration from elements of computer games — though he admitted that he was terrible at the games and his sons usually beat him.

"Video games are often based on a classical quest format. That fits well with a fable," he told the AP. "The book is about the value of life, and in video games you can have a thousand lives. So I contrasted those two things."

Rushdie said much has changed since his first children's book, which he described as a response to being forced into hiding. The fatwah, which came amid angry protests and book burnings across the Muslim world, put Rushdie under police protection for almost 10 years.

"This was a dark time for me and I tried to fill the novel with light and to give it a happy ending. Happy endings were things I had become very interested in at the time," he said.

Rushdie said he enjoyed writing the two children's books, but he doesn't see himself becoming a children's author.

Full report here AP

Landscape of the soul

Though the book is squeaky clean, it takes a brave woman to talk about love, gender and social politics so openly.

The cover has attitude. Oodles of it. A pink-skinned young woman with a bright magenta mouth, sporting pink glares and with a headscarf dotted with tiny pink hearts and camels. The background, if possible, gets even pinker! This ensemble could fool you into expecting candy-floss chick-lit but that's where you're likely to be mistaken. For chick-lit it is and memoir too, but Love in a Headscarf by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is so much more.

The theme is simple and linear, as firmly stated on the cover: Muslim woman seeks the One. As the eligible young Muslim woman telling her story of the big search, Shelina embarks on an endless quest for the perfect life partner and the reader is taken on a wild and hilarious roller-coaster ride. This is a theme that has been done to death by the Austens and the Advaitas of the literary world but the unusual milieu and the author's deft pen open secret vistas into the world of British Asian Muslim women that virtually beg for deeper exploration.

Full report here Hindu

Writing on her own terms

Blogger and best selling author Shelina Zahra Janmohamed talks about the challenges facing the Asian Muslim woman.

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is a woman who wears many head scarves! Award-winning blogger, widely-read columnist and popular television and radio commentator, this attractive and articulate U.K.-based writer was named as one of the UK's Muslim Women Power 100 list by The Times. Winner of the Muslim Writers' Awards 2008 for Best Published Non-Fiction, the writer is currently riding a wave with her debut novel. In a voice that rises above the cacophony of clichés, the author discusses her plunge into writing her first book (a huge milestone for any writer) and other matters close to the heart....

How easy or difficult is it being a writer in a headscarf?
I find that, in the cold winter air in London, it keeps my head warm while I think! Hmm, perhaps I should give a more serious answer. The challenge for any writer is to have their voice heard on their own terms. For a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf, my greatest challenge in writing Love in a Headscarf was to persuade publishers that a (Muslim Asian) woman who wears a headscarf can in fact have a positive, funny and honest story to tell.

Full report here Hindu

There’s a case for burning all the holy books

There’s an unintended irony about the (eventually aborted) campaign last week by Terry Jones, the pastor of a fringe church in Florida, to make a bonfire of copies of the Koran on the grounds that it was an “evil book”. Jones isn’t the first man of Christian faith who was broadcasting to the world his loathing of the Koran and, more broadly, of Islam. Since the 8th century, when Islam spread across Europe, that religion and its Holy Book have served as objects of hatred — and, on occasion, fear — for Christians.

Christian clergymen and scholars branded the Koran the “work of the devil” that was dangerous to Christian souls, and this revulsion was immortalised in popular Christian literature and hymns down the ages.

The “clash of civilisations” continued right up until the 16th century, when the Ottoman Empire, expanding through conquest, was at its apex. In the 16th century, however, German theologian Martin Luther advanced an effort to publish Latin translations of the Koran — in the belief that free dissemination of Koranic ideas among Christians would refute “the abomination of Mohammed” and do “grievous harm” to the Turks. Fighting efforts to censor and prevent the translation and dissemination of the Koran, Luther wrote: “To honour Christ, to do good for Christians, to harm the Turks, to vex the devil, set (the Koran) free…”

Full report here DNA

Salman Rushdie supports mosque near Ground Zero

Controversial Indian-origin author Salman Rushdie has spoken out in support of a mosque near Ground Zero, an issue that has sparked a religious row in US amid opinion polls suggesting that majority of Americans oppose it.

"It's just a stupid argument," Rushdie said at the Brooklyn Book Festival in New York.

"Of course they should be able to build a mosque there," he was quoted as saying by the New York Post.

The writer also noted that the controversy regarding the proximity of the mosque near the World Trade Centre made no sense, since the mosque was inside the World Trade Centre itself.

Rushdie also spoke against the burning of Qurans, which had been planned by Florida Pastor Terry Jones.

Full report here Times of India

Deepak Chopra releases 'Muhammad' early as an e-book

Hot debate in the US about Islam has sparked spiritual guru Deepak Chopra to release his upcoming book weeks early in electronic form. Chopra fans can stay tuned to online retailers for exactly when the e-book will soon become available.

The new book, a fictionalized biography of Prophet Muhammad, is set to be released in print form on September 21 in the US. (Oct. 1 in the UK). But HarperCollins, the book's publisher, authorized e-book retailers to sell the book as soon as possible. The decision comes in response to the heated controversy in the US about the nature of Islam and the proposed mosque and Islamic community center near Ground Zero in New York City.

Born in India, Chopra has become a leader of alternative medicine and has written more than 50 books translated into more than 35 languages. His newest book, Muhammad: A Story of the Last Prophet, is part of his "teaching novel" series, in which he offers fictionalized biographies of the founders of prominent religions. His prior novels Buddha and Jesus were bestsellers in the US.

Full report here Independent

The spillover effect

It is nine years since 9/11. Writers dwelling upon the rage of Islamists, and how to deal with it, have shed about as much ink in these years as their subjects have shed blood. Neither appears to be done.

“Radical Islam is the greatest threat facing the world today,” Tony Blair bellowed this month in a BBC interview, part of his promotion campaign for A Journey, a memoir about his days at 10 Downing Street. Much of the book is an attempt to justify the former British prime minister’s actions as a junior partner in the US-led war on terror, waged against alleged Islamist groups and regimes in the aftermath of 9/11.

His critics point out that the war only fed the rage of Islamists and led to a global spread—its most recent example being a triple-bombing in Lahore, Pakistan, a day before Blair’s interview, in which at least 25 Shias were killed and 170 injured.

But their blood is just a drop in the ocean that Islamists began spilling much before 9/11 and the war on terror—just as Blair’s hollering, expected to earn £4.6 million (around Rs. 33 crore), is a humble cog in what Saudi-British scholar Madawi al Rashid has called an “industry” of studies on radical Islam and its impact, spawned by 9/11.

Full report here Mint

The heart of Islam

Sufism: The Heart of Islam;
Sadia Dehlvi;
HarperCollins;  Rs 499; Pp 480

Sufism is much misunderstood by both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. While Muslims think that Sufis are innovators in the religion and qabr-parast (grave worshipper) and therefore unacceptable, non-Muslims think that Sufism offers a peaceful alternative to violent face of Islam and therefore acceptable to them. The truth is somewhere between these two extremes and as Sadia Dehlvi aptly states in her book Sufism: The Heart of Islam it is “the spiritual undercurrent that flows through Islam.”

The book is an introduction to Sufism but Sadia beautifully intertwines it with her own spiritual journey making it more personal and also approachable by readers. Adorned with beautiful calligraphy the book is divided into four sections (called books) and a total of 17 chapters spread over 400 pages.

Full report here TwoCircles

Fighting the stereotypes on Islam

In his introduction, Mushirul Hasan asserts that the book is born out of a deep realisation that hardly any academically worthwhile work is available on ‘Islam in South Asia,' and this, at a time when pernicious misconceptions — such as that ‘Islam is a violent religion' and ‘Muslims are the only trouble-makers' — have crystallised into dominant facts in public mind. Obviously, this book is an attempt to confront these negative stereotypes and place the various elements of Islam and the Muslim society in perspective.

The book is divided into two parts — the first, on ‘Islam and the world,' has nine essays and the second, on ‘Islam in India', has 12, besides an interesting story, ‘I am a Hindu' by Asghar Wajahat, translated by Rakhshanda Jalil from Hindi.

The contributors include not just the well-known names such as Imtiaz Ahmed, Tariq Ramadan and Seema Alavi, but also several young scholars, who need to thank the magnanimous editor for giving them the rewarding experience.

Full report here Hindu

Forgotten years, lingering fragrance

Alys was born in 1908 of French parents who owned a hotel near Paris. She grew up in a country under the German occupation during World War I. Her character was marked by a mystic streak and she was given to reflecting about life and even ‘conversing' with God.

Enter the prince charming from Hyderabad called Ali Yar Khan. The inevitable happened and they got married in 1926. They sailed for India to what, for Alys, was an exotic life among the elite in the feudal State of Hyderabad.

Ali was a grandson of Nawab Imad-ul-Mulk, who had been invited to Hyderabad from the Bilgram village of Uttar Pradesh to be the private secretary of Salar Jung I and tutor of Nizam VI. Later, he became the Director of Education and was also appointed to the India Council. He was very influential in the affairs of the State.

He became the paterfamilias of the Bilgramis, the powerful Shia clan in a State under a Sunni ruler. All doors were thus opened to the new couple. Ali started as a lecturer in the Osmania University and rose to be the Minister for Constitutional Affairs of the State.

Full report here Hindu

Javed Akhtar gets death threat for fatwa remarks

Renowned lyricist and poet Javed Akhtar has received a death threat in the form of an email, reportedly in reaction to his comments against Darul Uloom Deoband's fatwa against working Muslim women.

Akhtar says he doesn't know who sent him the e-mail. He says he received threats via SMS earlier.

"I got different kinds of responses. While on one hand people had reservations about my stance, on the other I was applauded for my comments. You can voice your opinion but can't threaten anyone," Akhtar told IBN7.
Meanwhile, the Mumbai Police has sprung into action, providing him with security. Akhtar is expected to meet the Mumbai Police Commissioner this evening.

Full report here IBN Live

REVIEW: Journey to the Holy Land

REVIEW

Journey to the Holy Land - A Pilgrim's Diary
Amir Ahmad Alawi
Translated and with an introduction by Mushirul Hasan and Rakhshanda Jalil
Oxford University Press
Rs. 650
Pp 271
ISBN: 0198063466
Hardcover

Blurb
One of the five pillars of Islam, Hajj (literally ‘effort’) is the largest annual pilgrimage in the world stretching back to the time of the Prophet (seventh century ad) and even earlier. Before the age of organized travel, the journey spread across sea, deserts and mountains was perilous to say the least. Nonetheless, the hajjis (pilgrims) trivialized the dangers in the knowledge that they would soon enter the House of God.

Translated and introduced for the first time, Amir Ahmad Alawi’s Safar-i Sa’adat (Propitious Journey), written in 1929, is a firsthand account of this quintessentially Muslim journey. Presented in the form of a roznamcha or daily diary, the work is much more than a personal narrative of lamentation and triumph. Alawi watched, listened and recorded with an air of confident authority. His catholic vision captures the comingling of cultures and peoples, and he candidly comments on the social, economic and political conditions of the places he passed through.

The comprehensive Introduction, while locating the place of hajj in Islam and describing some of its well-known customs, rituals and practices, provides a broad understanding of hajj in colonial India. The special piece, ‘My Experience of the Hajj of 1916’ by J.S. Kadri, information on movement of ships meant for hajj passengers of 1929 and a detailed glossary add value to the book


Review
A pilgrim's progress to Haj Hindu
Amir Ahmed Alwai wrote Safar-I-Sadaat in Urdu based on his daily accounts of his Haj experience. He undertook the Haj journey that spanned more than four months, beginning January 31, 1929. This book is its English version. The objective evidently is to make it accessible to a wider audience. One of the negative offshoots of the British colonial rule has been the damage native languages suffered on account of the dominance of English, which virtually became a global lingua franca, so to say. And Urdu is among the worst victims. The irony of it all is that the most vehement of the critics of imperialism are also the most committed champions of English. This translated work can well be seen as an attempt to demonstrate that native languages are indeed a reservoir of vital sources of historical and other information and are as effective a medium as English to tell the human story.

Quite enlightening is the 69-page introduction which provides an incisive analysis of the contemporary literature on Haj experiences, apart from giving a detailed account of Alwai's life, career, antecedents, and, more importantly, the socio-historical importance of the region he belongs to. Marked by profound scholarship and intellectual richness, this piece bears the unmistakable imprint of Mushirul Hasan, who has a towering presence among contemporary historians, thanks not just to his several volumes of scholarly work but also to his creation of a new genre of historiography on modern India by employing varying methodologies. There is also an interesting chapter by J.S. Kadri, titled ‘My experience in Hajj in 1916', which provides a comparative perspective on such empirical accounts of Haj pilgrimage.
==================
This above all Telegraph
I have never been on a pilgrimage. I admit I never had the least desire to do so nor would go on one now except as a spectator-journalist. However, I also have to admit that everyone known to me who has been on one speaks highly of the emotional satisfaction they derived from the experience.

All religions believe in pilgrimages. For Jews and Christians, it is Jerusalem, the birthplace of both faiths. They also have lesser places of pilgrimage like Lourdes in France, where it is claimed that the sick are miraculously healed. Hindus have their Kumbh melas where they go in millions to bathe in the holy Ganga. The Sikhs have their five takhts (thrones), with the recent addition of Hemkunt Sahib in Uttarakhand. By far, the most spectacular of all pilgrimages is the haj to Mecca and Medina. It is obligatory for all Muslims who can afford it. Millions of Muslims from all parts of the world gather there to offer prayers. Those who can’t make the haj go on a lesser pilgrimage called umra. From the pictures I have seen (no non-Muslims are allowed in Mecca or Medina), the haj makes for an impressive sight, with thousands of similarly attired people going through their genuflections with military precision.
==================
Everyman’s Mecca Outlook
Western scholars have noted that from the fourth to the 16th century, pilgrimage was the dominant mode of travel to the Middle East and the most common paradigm for travel writing. The Crusades were fed as much by religio-political aspirations of regents as by the desire of European ‘commoners’ to see the Holy Land. It was they who often formed the most vehement of crusaders, a rag-tag army trailing behind the knights and princes.

Again, from the 19th century onwards, there was a revival of the practice of pilgrimage to the Holy Land from Europe and the US. While this history of Western pilgrimage has been widely studied, the parallel history of Haj pilgrimages is only now being excavated and examined in English. In this context, the book under review—the first English translation of Amir Ahmad Alawi’s Journey to the Holy Land, and the excellent introduction by translators Mushirul Hasan and Rakhshanda Jalil—is a major contribution to a burgeoning branch of study.

A British love affair with Arabia

Allama Iqbal, one of the tallest poets and philosophers Asia has produced, had been endlessly fascinated by the rise and fall of the Muslims.

He had been preoccupied with the issue in both his Urdu and Persian poetry collections, both incredibly rich in their range and language. When it comes to the breadth of vision, foresight and grandeur of ideas and thought, no one comes close to the man claimed by both India and Pakistan. The much exploited Saare jahan se achcha Hindustan hamara is just one gem from his repertoire. I have been constantly reminded of the poet philosopher and what he once said about the Arabs while singing my way through Sir Wilfred Thesiger’s “Arabian Sands”. Iqbal passionately believed in the Islamic renaissance and argued that the rejuvenation of the civilization that ruled the world for nearly a thousand years would start in its birthplace at the hands of desert Arabs.

Iqbal made the prediction at a time of great turmoil and utter chaos in the Muslim world after the collapse of the Ottoman caliphate. I’ve often wondered what exactly Iqbal had in mind when he pitched for the Arabs at a time when they seemingly offered no hope for optimism. Thesiger’s Arabian Sands offers the answer. Iqbal believed that the world would rediscover the glory of Islam when the Arabs rediscover their roots and their original simplicity, honesty and the courage that once endeared them to the world. Arab traders who took on high seas with their primitive boats and traversed the world on horseback promoted their new faith and worldview not at the sword point, as some choose to believe, but with their actions and the way they conducted themselves. 

Full report here Arab News

REVIEW: Reading with Allah

REVIEW

Reading with Allah—Madrasas in West Bengal
Nilanjana Gupta
Routledge
Rs. 595
Pp 192
ISBN: 978-0-415-54459-7

Blurb
Based on extensive fieldwork and archival records, this book traces the emergence and flourishing of madrasas and the myriad ways in which they impact upon local Muslim communities, especially in West Bengal. It also addresses issues of identity, ‘secular’ education and gender in this context, while exploring the myths that surround these institutions. Amongst other things, it interrogates why Muslim communities prefer sending their sons to government schools to receive a secular education, while the daughters are sent to madrasas. 

Review

twocircles.net

Much has been written on the Indian madrasas or Islamic seminaries, but because the most influential madrasas in the country are concentrated in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, many of these writings tend to project north Indian madrasas as representative of madrasas in the country as a whole. Consequently, patterns and changing trends in madrasa education in the rest of India have been scantily dealt with, if at all, in the existing literature.

This well-documented work by Nilanjana Gupta, Professor of English at the Jadavpur University, Kolkata, is an in-depth study of the madrasa system of education in West Bengal, where some thirty per cent of the population are Muslims. Despite their formidable numbers and the fact that the so-called ‘progressive’ Left Front has been in power in West Bengal for decades now, the bulk of the Muslims in the state are economically, educationally and socially far behind the other communities, including even the Scheduled Castes.

-=-=-=-=
madrasareforms.blogspot.com

The book begins with an engaging discussion about debates, set in motion with the advent of colonial rule in Bengal, about the usefulness or otherwise of madrasa education. Gupta points out that in pre-colonial Bengal, as in much of the rest of India, madrasas were centres not just of Islamic learning but also provided education in subjects such as Persian, Mathematics, Sciences and Medicine that were indispensable for would-be administrators and other government officials. Several madrasas were also open to Hindus of the ‘higher’ castes. The advent of the British and the new educational system that they set in place, she writes, marked the beginning of a rigid educational dualism, with secular or ‘modern’ subjects now being taught in Western-style schools, while madrasas began to narrow their focus, being restricted largely to Islamic subjects. This, in turn, led to lively debates among the Bengali Muslim community about the usefulness of madrasa education, whose echoes continue to reverberate even today.

Author arrested for "offensive" books against Buddhism

Human rights activists have urged Sri Lankan authorities to free Sarah Malanie Perera who was arrested under the country’s stringent emergency laws last week for writing two books allegedly offensive to Buddhism.

Perera, a Sinhalese who converted from Buddhism to Islam more than 10 years ago, is a resident of Bahrain. She was on her way back to Bahrain from Colombo last week after spending three months here when she was arrested.

She compiled the two books written in Sinhalese while in Colombo and had got it printed here. According to reports, Perera was sending some copies through freight when she was apprehended. The arrest of the 38-year-old author came in the same week the Sri Lankan government said it will not allow rapper and R&B singer Akon to perform in Colombo because one of his music videos was found to have demeaned Buddhism.

Police here have remained tight-lipped about Perera’s arrest.  Police spokesperson, SSP P Jayakody, told HT that he was waiting to get more details from the concerned police officers. "I have asked for a report,’’ he said. The Bahrain-based Gulf Daily News reported that the Bahrain Human Rights Society (BHRS) secretary-general Dr Abdulla Al Deerazi has said that it would do everything it could to bring her back.

Full report here Hindustan Times 

Taslima finds her voice again on twitter

Controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen has found a new outlet for her opinions - on the social networking web tool, Twitter.

She had opened her account in January, but had so far made only three tweets in the last three months. But, after the National Commission for Minorities chairman Mohd Shafi Qureshi had asked for her permission to stay in India to be revoked, Nasreen has become a regular on twitter from Wednesday. Nasreen had got her residence permit renewed last month but had to leave India, where she had been living for several years, after certain Muslim groups organised violent protests against her "anti-Islam" writings.

Reacting to the NCM chief's remarks, she tweeted "Can Muslims be liberal" on Wednesday.

Since then, she had been quite frequently on twitter, sending over 15 tweets in the last two days. "Without the right to offend, freedom of expression cannot exist. And without freedom of expression, democracy will not work," she tweeted. She also provided links to videos and essays on the subject of freedom of expression.

Full report here Sify