CHIN UP: Sayeed isn't giving in

When Bader Sayeed took over as chairperson of the Tamil Nadu Wakf Board on January 4-the first woman to head any Wakf board in the country-all hell broke loose. The South India Isha-Athul Islam Sabai said asking a woman to head the Wakf Board was against the Shariat and passed a resolution asking the Government to reconsider the appointment. Women are banned from entering mosques when menstruating, goes the argument, and should not lead prayers. "The Wakf head should be a person knowledgeable about Islam," the resolution says.

Sayeed pooh-poohs the resolution as the rantings of a minuscule minority. "Who are they to say I don't have enough knowledge of Islam? Islam promotes tolerance, but this is gender discrimination."

There is another plausible reason for the campaign against Sayeed, who was earlier chairperson of the State Minorities Commission and president of the Women Lawyers' Association. When some Muslim scholars criticised the 1986 Supreme Court verdict ordering compensation for divorced Muslim women, she was in the forefront of a signature campaign hailing the verdict. Sayeed is firm about continuing as Wakf chief.

-Arun Ram

Homecoming

SHOWSTOPPER: Naipaul

For a week from From February 18, some of the finest writers from India and abroad will come together at the first-ever International Festival of Indian Literature, At Home In the World, Sir V.S. Naipaul in his post-Nobel halo being the star attraction. At the ICCR-organised festival, also look for: Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Pico Iyer, Arundhati Roy, Anita Rau Badami, the Italian novelist Roberto Calasso, author of Ka, Anil Ramdas from Holland who writes in Dutch, Essayist and scholar David Pryce-Jones, editor of the right-wing National Review. They are among the 50 participants who for six days will be talking about the writer and his many situations in Delhi and the Neemrana Retreat. Says ICCR Director-General Himachal Som: "The plan is to have a literary triennale." Still, the biggest presence at the festival will be the absence of Salman Rushdie, without whose imagination India would not have been what it is today in the international lit mart.

-Samrat Choudhary

Tagore Freed

The end of Viswabharati's 60-year copyright on the works of Rabindranath Tagore has proved to be a windfall for small publishers in West Bengal. The Kolkata Book Fair was flooded with redesigned titles by Tagore-the text is a lift from Viswabharati books, but the jackets look like posters for C-grade Bengali potboilers. At throwaway prices-some as low as Rs 7-they sold like hot cakes. That's sure to hurt Viswabharati, which was raking in Rs 2.25 crore each year from publishing rights, a large part of it from Tagore's works.

-Labonita Ghosh

CONTRABAND: The seized antlers

Twenty years after the ban on the trade of antlers of protected species came into effect, business continues to thrive. That's obvious from the seizure of 6,428 kg of antlers by forest officials in Nagpur. The antlers-believed to have come from 800 sambhar and cheetal and valued at Rs 7 lakh-belong to local Congress leader Rakesh Sharma, who has been booked for trading in antlers on three previous occasions.

Nagpur is the main centre for the trade in antlers, which are in great demand in Europe and the US. These are used to make revolver butts and cutlery, says Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India. Powdered antlers are also used in traditional medicine. Traders sometimes burn huge tracts of forest to collect shed antlers. Poaching of deer has increased substantially in the past decade.

-Prerna Singh Bindra