Far From The Madding Crowd

As narrated in this article in the Times of India, Taslima Nasrin has stopped counting her banned works and is now busy writing memoirs, articles and poems in Kolkata

Frederick Noronha’s blog on the Frank Simoes Children’s Library, that got inaugurated on Feb 24, 2007.

An interesting article that suggests that “magnificently sophisticated geometric patterns in medieval Islamic architecture indicate their designers achieved a mathematical advance 500 years earlier than Western scholars”.

From an article in the Hindustan Times

Well-known Marathi author, Dr. Kishor Shantabai Kale succumbed to injuries he sustained when a tyre of the ambulance he was travelling in burst.

Kale’s story can be traced in his autobiography Kolhyateche Por released in 1994. The book, which created a storm in Marathi literary circles, tells the author’s struggle to break free of his disadvantageous background as the illegitimate son of a tamasha (folk dance) dancer.

Abandoned by his mother and ridiculed by his peers after he wrote the book, Kale went on to educate himself and become the first ever doctor from his community.

His book opened a door to the little known ‘Kolhati community’ of tamasha dancers and street performers.

The Lahore International Book Fair 2007 kicks off today at the Expo Centre in the Fortress Stadium, Lahore Cantt. The fair features publishers from the UK, USA and India displaying their newest books in over 200 stalls and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the province of Punjab, Pakistan, every year.

“So needed, yet so despised the migrant worker’s lot in Goa is paradoxical”, states the epilogue of the book, Shadows in the Dark-The status of the migrant working community in Goa, written by lecturer Prashanti Talpankar.

The book deals with the migrant working community, especially children, in its economic and socio-cultural dimensions. It is an initiative of Children’s Rights in Goa with Talpankar travelling extensively to prepare a report based on a survey of migrant workers in all talukas of Goa.

The Kitabfest, a festival of literature, media and the arts, commencing across various venues across Mumbai on February 23rd, is conceived to “facilitate the cultural conversation” between UK and India. The last edition of this event in India was held in April 2006 with Shashi Tharoor, Amit Chaudhuri and Nadeem Aslam attending. This year, the guests include author Hanif Kuereshi, novelist Kiran Nagarkar and writer Helen Simpson.

An interesting blog on the shifts in Indian literary culture.

An excerpt from an article by the same name in the Hindustan Times

After being vandalised in January 2004, the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) has moved on. It will star in New Delhi between February 5 and 13 during Kriti Rakshana:Manuscript Week, celebrating the fourth anniversary of the National Mission for Manuscripts, set up by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture.

BORI will share new findings on the Mahabharata , India’s pillar-of-civilization epic. In its original Sanskrit avatar, authored by the sage Ved Vyasa c. 6th century BCE, this 74,000 verse, 1.8 million word epic is colloquially called Jaya (victory) across India.

After its launch on February 13, the website http://www.namami.org may be viewed for information not only on the Mahabharata but also for a host of individual manuscripts, manuscript collections and printed catalogues, in Hindi and English.

Excerpts from an IANS report

In a big thumbs up to independent publishing and the fight against the caste system, the Indian Young Publisher Award has gone to a journalist who has devoted himself to exclusively bringing out books on caste related issues.

S Anand won the award for his lateral thinking and passion in running the Chennai-based Navayana Book Club, the country’s first publishing house to focus only on the issue of caste.

The job of running an independent publishing house and that too with books exclusively on caste issues is daunting, but the confident 29-year-old is ready to take up the challenge.

Anand’s publishing house Navayana literally means ‘new vehicle’, a term given to Dalit icon BR Ambedkar’s socially and morally concerned, rationalistic, anti-metaphysical interpretation of Buddhism. As a publishing venture, Navayana aims to take forward debates on issues neglected by mainstream publishers.

Navayana has 10 titles to its credit in the past three years, including books like “The Blindness of Insight” by Dilip M Menon.

Anand, who set up Navayana along with Pondicherry-based Dalit activist-theoretician Ravikumar, was selected for the award from a field of 52 stronger applicants across India and a final shortlisted 11. He will now get the opportunity to compete for the International Young Publisher of the Year Award at the London Book Fair in April 2007.