Author / Editor: P R Kumaraswamy
 
Middle East Institute at New Delhi, 2012
 
Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon for MEI@ND, September 2012
 
Price: Rs. 174/-
 

He is revered the world over for his prodigious literary output, including thousands of poems and songs. But what the world will now get to know about Rabindranath Tagore is that through his travels to over 30 countries he became India's peace envoy and outlined a vision of humanism and unity of mankind.

He is revered the world over for his prodigious literary output, including thousands of poems and songs. But what the world will now get to know about Rabindranath Tagore is that through his travels to over 30 countries he became India's peace envoy and outlined a vision of humanism and unity of mankind.

Book: "The Caliphate's Soldiers: The Laskhar-e-Taiba's Long War"; Author: Wilson John; Publishers: Amaryllis (In association with Observer Research Foundation); Pages: 295; Price: Rs.595

A three-day confluence of narratives, ideas, literary expositions and cultural showcases from India and Bhutan will strengthen the growing South Asian cultural solidarity in the Himalayan kingdom next month.

In what is typical of South Asian societies, Muslim women from middle class homes continue to battle discrimination despite efforts by the government and non-profit organisations to empower them, says veteran filmmaker-activist Rama Pandey, who is serialising her encounters with 26 women from the community in three volumes of stories.

The growing English language publishing industry in India has taken a step north with three veteran publishers - David Davidar, Ravi Singh and Kapish G. Mehra - joining ranks to push high-end literary fiction from the subcontinent to a wider cross section of readers in the country.

The subcontinent can become a paradise in the region by retaining cultural, social and political identities of countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, says former Pakistani Army officer, journalist, writer and commentator Abdul Rahman Siddiqi - an old "Dilliwallah" from Ballimaran in Chandni Chowk.

Acclaimed writer Salman Rushdie, author of the controversial "The Satanic Verses" as also bestsellers like "Midnight's Children" and "Shame", denounced "disgraceful vote bank politics" being practised in the country and said "95 percent of Muslims in India are not interested in violence being done in their name".

Robbed of a home and a peaceful life, Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen feels that religious fundamentalists apart, the responsibility for her sufferings lies on the "politicians of the Indian subcontinent" who have labelled her anti-Islam and banned her books.