Taslima Nasreen gets to stay, India extends visa
The Government has not yet taken any decision on granting a visa extension to Taslima Nasreen. According to sources, the issue is still under consideration at the ministry level.
Taslima’s visa expires on February 17 and she has appealed to the Government to grant her an extension. Her Indian visa was last extended on August 10 last year for six months.
There were reports earlier on Thursday that the Government has already decided to grant her an extension. But sources said no such decision has been taken till now.
On Wednesday, Taslima expressed hope that the Centre would extend her visa.
“I am waiting for the extension of my visa. I will come to know (about the government decision on the visa) a few days before February 17,” Nasreen told PTI.
The Bangladeshi author is currently in Delhi where she is being kept in a safe house at an undisclosed location by security agencies.
“I am greatful that the Government of India has been extending my visa for the past three years,” she said. “I consider India my own country.”
Radical Muslim groups have been demanding that Taslima’s visa should not be extended and that she be asked to leave India.
Muslim organisations, including Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, have also urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to take strict action against her for hurting the religious sentiments of the Muslims.
Under pressure from various Muslim bodies, the UPA Government has already refused a French proposal to confer the prestigious Simone de Beauvoir Award on Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen during President Nicolas Sarkozy’s forthcoming visit to India.
Sarkozy, who arrives on Thursday, has been invited by the Government to attend the Republic Day celebrations.
The Union Government cited ’security reasons’ for not allowing a formal ceremony to be held in India for the purpose.
The author says she is tired of staying at the safe house in Delhi and wants to return to Kolkata. “I want an end to my state of internment here and go back to Kolkata which is my city,” she said on Wednesday.
“I don’t know how long I will be in this state of internment, but I want to tell everyone that I have not committed any crime,” she said.
The writer said all her 30 books, including Dwikhandito whose controversial pages have since been deleted by her in the face of protests, would be on sale at the Kolkata Book Fair.
A fundamentalist organisation has already issued a warning against sale of her books at the fair.
Hindu Nationalists Win Key Vote in India
Hindu nationalists won a solid victory Sunday in a closely watched election in Gujarat, one of India’s wealthiest and most restive states, further weakening the ruling Congress party ahead of national elections.
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, won 117 of 182 seats in the state legislature, setting the stage for it to gain power in Parliament. The Congress party won 62 seats, with smaller parties taking the rest.
The BJP’s controversial leader, Narendra Modi, campaigned on a pro-business platform that attracted middle-class Hindus. But as the state’s chief minister, Modi had angered the state’s Muslims, who along with human rights groups accuse him of complicity in 2002 sectarian riots that left more than 1,000 Muslims dead.
Two amazing children
They were two youngsters, a brother and a sister. The boy aged 12 and the girl aged 15, were in school uniform. They were carrying heavy school satchels. They behaved like children of respectable parents. Like us, they too were waiting for the bus. A state bus, bound for Chandigarh, arrived. The bus ploughed through the crowd, scattered the passengers helter-skelter and came to a screeching halt.
The commuters charged at the bus and scampered into it. In the flurry and scurry the two children patiently waited for their turn. They were the last to board. The youngsters occupied the seat in front of me. The girl handed over a 50-rupee note to me to pass it on to the conductor via other passengers, for two tickets to Ashram, New Delhi.
The note was handed over by commuters to the conductor, who in the same way dispatched the tickets and the balance amount back to the children. The gir1counted the balance returned by the conductor, looked at the value of the ticket, and counted the balance again.
Discovering that the conductor had returned Rs 1.50 in excess, she directed the younger brother to return the excess amount to the conductor The boy got up from his seat, slowly waded through the crowd of passengers, reached the conductor and returned it. The conductor nodded his head in appreciation.
All this while I watched the two in admiration. And so did the crowd. However, after some time the girl again started counting the money. On recalculation, she found that the conductor had in fact paid Rs 2.50 and not Rs 1.50 in excess.
She once again asked her brother to go to the conductor. The boy returned another rupee to the conductor. Their exemplary conduct caused a big whisper of approbation among the commuters who marveled at the conscientious youngsters. Spontaneously, I caressed their heads.
The kids responded with “Thank you.” Then they got down at Ashram, leaving us philosophising about the moral ’sanskars’ the children might have imbibed from their parents.
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