Latest news with #Mustaq
United News of India
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- United News of India
India's Banu Mustaq becomes first Kannada writer to win International Booker
London, May 21 (UNI) In a momentous literary breakthrough, Indian writer, lawyer and activist Banu Mustaq has become the first author writing in Kannada to win the prestigious International Booker Prize for her powerful short story anthology 'Heart Lamp'. The anthology, spanning 12 stories written between 1990 and 2023, was translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, who also became the first Indian translator to win the coveted literary award. "This book was born from the belief that no story is ever small; that in the tapestry of human experience, every thread holds the weight of the whole," Mustaq declared in her acceptance speech. "In a world that often tries to divide us, literature remains one of the last sacred spaces where we can live inside each other's minds, if only for a few pages," she added. Hailing from a modest township in Karnataka, Mustaq's journey to authorship was anything but conventional. Her short story appeared in a local magazine a year after she had married a man of her choosing at the age of 26, but her early marital years were also marked by conflict and strife - something she openly spoke of, in several interviews. Over the years Mushtaq's writings have won numerous prestigious local and national awards including the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award and the Daana Chintamani Attimabbe Award. Mushtaq's win comes off the back of Geetanjali Shree's Tomb of Sand - translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell - winning the prize in 2022, reports BBC. In 2024, the translated English compilation of Mushtaq's five short story collections published between 1990 and 2012 - Haseena and Other Stories - won the PEN Translation Prize. UNI NST PRS
Indian Express
04-05-2025
- Indian Express
1993 Mumbai blasts accused Farooq Takla found guilty in passport forgery case
A magistrate court on Saturday sentenced Mohammed Farooq Yasin Mansoor, one of the accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, to five years in jail in a case where he forged a passport using someone else's identity. Farooq, alias Farooq Takla, 66, has been behind bars since 2018 and the punishment will be considered undergone as he has already spent more than five years in jail as an undertrial. Farooq is facing trial for the 1993 serial blasts after he was extradited from the UAE. He was declared an absconding accused in 1995 as he had remained untraced after being named in the blasts as a conspirator. Farooq was alleged to have been residing in the UAE under the assumed identity of Mustaq Mohammed Miya. In 2001, he managed to procure a passport with the fake identity from the Consulate General of India in Dubai. This passport expired in 2002. The CBI alleged that Farooq got another passport issued with the same fake identity from the Consulate in 2011. This passport was valid till 2021. He used this passport to come to India in 2018 as Mustaq and was caught at Delhi airport. The CBI then booked him under charges including under the Passport Act and sections of cheating and forgery of the Indian Penal Code. 'Accused nowhere denied that on 8 March 2018, he came at Delhi airport from Dubai. When the accused denying about the forged passport, he failed to show that on what passport, he went to Dubai and on what passport he again came in India. Accused failed to show that he has a valid passport of his own name on the relevant date of journey. Accused failed to give the details of his passport and other details i.e. when he made application for passport and for renewal of passport and how he went to Dubai without valid passport or on which passport,' Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate R D Chavan said in the order on Saturday. During the trial, Special Public Prosecutor Rajkumar Meena, appearing for the CBI, submitted that Farooq had written letters addressed to the prime minister, claiming to be Mustaq. It submitted handwritten specimens to claim that the application for a passport was forged and also recorded the statement of the real Mustaq whose identity was used for the passport. The court relied on forensic evidence as well as witness testimonies including the immigration officer at Delhi airport. 'Evidence on record i.e. oral and documentary evidence shows that the accused Mohammed Farooq Yasin Mansoor @Farooq Takla applied for the passport and renewal of passport by using the name Mustaq Mohammed Miya, which is not his real name. The passport application and passport contains false particulars, false information and forged signature. It shows that the accused by hiding his real identity and submitting false information obtained the passport and also got it renewed,' the court said.
