Nobel-winning writer V.S. Naipaul dies aged 85

Agencies
August 12, 2018

London, Aug 12: Nobel prize-winning British author V.S. Naipaul has died at the age of 85, his family announced on Saturday.

"He died surrounded by those he loved having lived a life which was full of wonderful creativity and endeavour," his wife Lady Nadira Naipaul said in a statement.

She described the outspoken author as a "giant in all that he achieved".

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was born in Trinidad, the son of an Indian civil servant, and studied English literature at Oxford University on a scholarship.

He settled in England but spent much of his time travelling and despite becoming a pillar of Britain's cultural establishment, was also a symbol of modern rootlessness.

Naipaul's early works focused on the West Indies, but came to encompass countries around the world, often focusing on the traumas of post-colonial change.

When he was awarded the 2001 Nobel prize for literature, the Swedish Academy described him as a "literary circumnavigator, only ever really at home in himself, in his inimitable voice".

It said he was "the annalist of the destinies of empires in the moral sense: what they do to human beings".

"His authority as a narrator is grounded in his memory of what others have forgotten, the history of the vanquished," it said.

Naipaul, who was knighted in 1990, mixed fiction, non-fiction and autobiography without distinction.

One of his seminal novels was the "A House for Mr Biswas" (1961), which looked at the almost impossible task for Indian immigrants in the Caribbean of trying to integrate into society while keeping hold of their roots.

Overall he wrote more than 30 books, and was one of the first winners of the Booker Prize, now Britain's leading literary award, in 1971 for "In A Free State".

During his early career, Naipaul was dogged by money worries and loneliness. He met his first wife, Pat, at Oxford, who became his constant literary support.

She died in 1996, and he later revealed that he felt he hastened her death by publicly admitting while she fought cancer that he had frequented prostitutes.

Naipaul married Pakistani journalist Nadira Alvi the same year Pat died.

He was famously outspoken and had a reputation for cutting people out of his life, but once retorted: "My life is short. I can't listen to banalities."

Naipaul's ire ranged from corruption in Indian politics to the West's cynical treatment of its former colonies to the cult of personality in "The Return of Eva Peron".

He pulled out of a Turkish literary event in 2010 following protests over his views that Islam both enslaved and attempted to wipe out other cultures.

He likened former British prime minister Tony Blair to a pirate at the head of a socialist revolution, and was also disparaging about "sentimental" female novelists.

Naipaul also fell out with US travel writer Paul Theroux, who later wrote a bitter, no-holds-barred memoir of their long association. They later resolved their differences.

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News Network
February 11,2020

Feb 11: China reported 108 new coronavirus deaths on February 10, the highest daily toll since the outbreak began in Wuhan late last year, as two senior officials in the hard-hit province of Hubei were removed from their jobs.

The total number of deaths on the mainland reached 1,016 in the 24 hours until midnight, the National Health Commission said on Tuesday.

Some 2,478 new cases were confirmed, bringing the total to 42,638.

Of the new deaths, 103 were in the province of Hubei, including 67 in the provincial capital of Wuhan. The virus is thought to have originated there in a market that sold seafood as well as wild animals.

Two senior health officials in the province - Zhang Jin who was Party Secretary of the health commission for Hubei and Ling Yingzi who was director of the Hubei Provincial Health Commission - were both removed from their posts, state media reported on Tuesday,  a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited health facilities in Beijing.

In his first public appearance since the outbreak began, Xi donned a face mask and had his temperature checked while visiting medical workers and patients in the capital.

"We have seen very little of Xi Jinping since the outbreak began but he was out and about in Beijing on Monday," Al Jazeera's Katrina Yu said from Beijing. "He has been trying to rally the troops saying: 'We can win this battle.' But it's also a sign that the battle is far from over."

The other fatalities on Monday were in the provinces of Heilongjiang, Anhui and Henan and the cities of Tianjin and Beijing, the National Health Commission said.

During a meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Monday, a group of leaders tasked with beating the virus said it would work to solve raw material and labour shortages and boost supplies of masks and protective clothing.

They said nearly 20,000 medical personnel from around the country had already been sent to Wuhan, and more medical teams were also on the way.

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News Network
January 21,2020

Amaravati, Jan 21: Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu and at least 17 MLAs of his party were taken in police custody late on Monday as they tried to conduct a foot march from the state assembly to nearby Mandadam village in violation of prohibitory orders.

TDP leaders started off on the march after staging a sit-in near the assembly main entrance following the suspension of 17 MLAs from the House for the day.

They were protesting the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill, 2020, that was passed by the assembly, enabling the establishment of three capitals for the state.

The TDP leaders were taken to the Mangalagiri police station.

Meanwhile, tensions prevailed at the Jana Sena Party headquarters at Mangalagiri as police prevented its president Pawan Kalyan from proceeding to the Amaravati region to speak to protesters fighting for the retention of only one capital for the state.

DIG Kanti Rana Tata and other senior police officials reached the Sena office and blocked the exit of Kalyan and political affairs committee chairman Nadendla Manohar, resulting in an argument.

Kalyan asked how could police impose restrictions within his own office.

Scores of Sena workers gathered outside the office even as a large posse of police was posted to thwart Kalyan and other leaders' plans.

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Agencies
February 4,2020

Dirbrugarh, Feb 4: Three persons, including two BJP activists, have been arrested for allegedly attacking the residence of Union minister Rameswar Teli during anti-CAA protests in Assam, police said on Monday.

The house of Teli, Union Minister of State for Food Processing, in Upper Assam's Duliajan town was attacked on December 11 during the statewide stir against the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

"Based on CCTV footages, Debajit Hazarika, Vicky Sonar and Arup Kahar were arrested. We had picked them up on Sunday," Dibrugarh Superintendent of Police, Sreejith T told PTI.

A total of 18 persons have been arrested so far for allegedly attacking Teli's house, he said.

"These three persons were also involved in pelting stones on a police party during protests in Duliajan," Sreejith said.

A BJP source confirmed that Debajit Hazarika and Vicky Sonar are party activists.

Family members of the accused have given statements to the police on the arrested persons' alleged role in violence and attacking Teli's house, sources said.

When contacted, Teli said, "I do not know for what reasons they were apprehended. But if police arrested them after proper investigation, then there must be some truth. The trio stays near my house. They always attended my programmes with their families."

A total of 88 people have been arrested so far from Dibrugarh district for their alleged involvement in violence during protests against the Act.

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