In Conversation with Mahasweta Devi
“I have read more books than I have eaten food. The matter for my writing comes from there. Writing is activism for me.” Mahasweta Devi. Meeting Mahasweta Devi was an …
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‘We must stop surrogacy exploitation, let justice prevail’
The rent-a-womb practice has evolved into a thriving industry in India, which is estimated to be over $2 billion. More than 250,000 children are now born in India through surrogates, …
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Love in times of Taliban: ‘They can be romantic….
In the daily mayhem and blood-letting of a Taliban-infested Afghanistan, it’s not easy to spin a love story, and that too, a novel which is interspersed with generous doses of …
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In search of the tragi-comic ‘Last Nizam’
John Zubrzycki, an Australian journalist, has authored a finely-nuanced portrait of Mukarram Jah, the last Nizam of Hyderabad. The book conjures up the life and times of a fabulously wealthy …
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China will slow down, 50-50 chance for India story
Author and analyst Ruchir Sharma could easily be mistaken for a model, with his clean good looks and impeccable manners. But if you were to talk to him and have …
Read MoreWriting Purifies My Blood
M.G. Vassanji’s new novel The Assassin’s Song is a homecoming of sorts for the Canada-based author as he etches a finely poised dialectic between faith and tradition on the one …
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Portrait of an Islamist radical
KHARTOUM: A conversation with Sheikh Hassan al-Turabi, derided by the West as the “Black Pope of Terrorism,” is like descending into the dark heart of Islamist radicalism that flaunts its …
Read More‘Laughing a way of coping in Iran’
A thousand jokes go around in Iran every day mocking Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the pretensions of the righteous and the powerful, says Iranian writer Kamin Mohammadi in an …
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Post 9/11 World Very Unhappy To Live In
Eminent historian Mushirul Hasan speaks to Manish Chand about the sharpening divide between the Muslim world and the West, the prospects of democratization in the Middle East, the continuing spurt …
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Interview With Vikas Swarup
Life imitates art sometimes. Vikas Swarup is a diplomat and not a gambler, but his debut novel Q and A, published last year by Random House, has scored big in …
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