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CNBC-TV18 is a business news channel broadcast in India based in Mumbai. The channel was launched on December 7, 1999. It was the first business news channel launched in India and still leads that genre. The channel has been an integral part of the Indian economic story, spearheading and mirroring India's enterprising times.

The channel's benchmark coverage extends from corporate news, financial markets coverage, and expert perspective on investing and management to industry verticals and beyond. CNBC-TV18 has been constantly innovating with new genres of programming that helps make business more relevant to different constituencies across India. India’s most able business audience consumes CNBC-TV18 for their information and investing needs. This audience is highly diversified, at one level comprising key groups such as business leaders, professionals, retail investors, brokers and traders, intermediaries, self-employed professionals, high-net-worth individuals, students and even homemakers but shares a distinct commonality in terms of their spirit of enterprise. CNBC-TV18 is available in over 35 million households in India.

Programming[link]

Current on-air staff[link]

CNBC-TV18's Key Milestones[link]

• CNBC-TV18 was the First 24 hr business news channel in the country – Launched in 1999 as CNBC India and was later re-christened CNBC-TV18
• CNBC-TV18 has maintained a dominant position in market share, despite the emergence of competition in recent years. The channel has consistently delivered more than 50% market share
• The channel has won Best Business News Channel awards at all major recognized industry events, apart from numerous other accolades across national & international platforms. These include the acclaimed Indian Telly Awards, Indian Television Academy & News Television Awards
• The Indian marketing & media decision makers have rated CNBC-TV18 India’s No.1 TV Brand in a market that has over 400 TV brands competing for eyeballs (Pitch Brandometer Survey 2009)
• CNBC-TV18 runs India's largest platform for recognizing & rewarding accomplishments of Indian SME's - The Emerging India Awards. The Awards are listed in the Limca book of records as they received the highest number of entries for any business awards in the country till date.
• CNBC-TV18 runs India’s most respected and sought after awards for recognizing business & entrepreneurial achievement, the CNBC-TV18 India Business Leader Awards (IBLA). The IBLA re-inforces the prestige of CNBC Asia’s “Asia Business Leader Awards” (ABLA) in the country.
• CNBC-TV18 was the first channel to deliver beam live INTERNATIONAL business news programming into the country and show live opening of global exchanges, across the world
• CNBC-TV18’s Storyboard is the longest-running show focused on Advertising and Marketing
• CNBC-TV18 was the 1st channel to have a dedicated show on corporate law in India, The Firm
• CNBC-TV18’s Young Turks is one of India’s first dedicated & longest-running shows focusing on young entrepreneurs
• CNBC-TV18 Launched CNBC TV18 Prime HD. India's First Business news channel in HD.

CNBC-TV18 taglines[link]

• "Profit From It" (2000—2008)
• "The World Leader in Business News" (2004—2008)
• "First in Business Worldwide" (2008—present)

Publishing[link]

CNBC-TV18 also publishes business and investing books and DVDs through Network18's division BestSellers18. The collection of books and DVDs range a broad spectrum of topics right from economics, stock markets, finance, entrepreneurship, management, business empowerment and philosophy.

Graphics[link]

2008-01-07 revamp[link]

Started 7 January 2008, CNBC-TV18 had patterned its graphics, some parts of the lower-thirds, title cards to the main network (CNBC) in the United States and unlike the regional channel, its graphics are in 3d. Although it has retained the old ticker (similar to the CNBC US 2002 graphics) and stock bar (similar to the CNBC US 2003 graphics), which is above the channel DOG, it has moved it to the top of the screen during CNBC Asia, NBC and CNBC US programmes.

2010-03-29 revamp[link]

Started March 29, 2010, CNBC-TV18 made another revamp, to make some of its lower-thirds look like CNBC US.

CNBC-TV18 HD[link]

This section requires expansion.

CNBC-TV18 is available in HD on DishTV and hathway.

See also[link]

• CNBC

Competitors[link]

• ET Now
• NDTV Profit
• Zee Business
• CNBC Awaaz
• CNN-IBN
• Bloomberg UTV
• NDTV 24x7
• Times Now
• Headlines Today
• NewsX

External links[link]

• CNBC-TV18
  • cnbctv18's channel on YouTube
  • CNBC-TV18 on Twitter
  • CNBC-TV18 on Facebook
• Network 18 Official website
• In.com - Latest Online venture from Network 18 Group

v t e NBCUniversal LLC A joint venture of Comcast (51%) and General Electric (49%) Company Officials Board of Directors Stephen B. Burke (CEO) · Brian Roberts · Michael Angelakis · Jeffrey Immelt · Keith Sherin Senior Corporate Executives Stephen B. Burke (CEO) · Matt Bond · Lynn Calpeter (CFO) · Steve Capus · Richard Cotton · Dick Ebersol · Patricia Fili-Krushel · Robert Greenblatt · Bonnie Hammer · Ted Harbert · Mark Hoffman · Paula Madison · Ron Meyer · Adam Miller · Jeff Shell · Page Thompson · Lauren Zalaznick Universal Studios Focus Features · Geneon Universal (80.1%)[nu 1] · Illumination Entertainment • United International Pictures[nu 2] · Universal Animation Studios · Universal Pictures · PlayBack · Universal Studios Home Entertainment · Working Title Films Universal Parks & Resorts Universal Studios Dubailand · Universal Studios Hollywood · Universal Orlando Resort (Universal Studios Florida · Islands of Adventure · Universal CityWalk) · Universal Studios Japan · Universal Studios Singapore · Universal Studios South Korea Broadcast TV assets NBC · NBC News · NBC Sports · Telemundo NBCUniversal Cable A+E Networks (15%) · Bravo · Chiller · Cloo · CNBC · E! · G4 (88%) · MSNBC · Mun2 · Oxygen · PBS Kids Sprout (part owner)  · ShopNBC (30%) · Style Network  · Syfy · Telemundo Puerto Rico · Universal HD · USA Network · The Weather Channel[nu 3] · Weatherscan[nu 3] NBC Sports Group Golf Channel · NBC Sports Network · Universal Sports (part owner)[nu 4] · Alli Comcast SportsNet Bay Area (45%)  · California  · Chicago (20%)  · Houston  · Mid-Atlantic  · New England  · Northwest  · Philadelphia  · SNY (8%)  · The Mtn. (50%) · CSS (50%) · Comcast Sports Southwest  · New England Cable News  · Comcast Network CNBC CNBC global channels CNBC · CNBC Africa · CNBC Asia · CNBC Europe · CNBC Latin America · CNBC World CNBC Europe branches Class CNBC (20%) · CNBC Africa · CNBC Arabiya (according to CNBC Europe) · CNBC-e · CNBC Nordic · TVN CNBC CNBC Asia branches CNBC-TV18 · CNBC Australia · CNBC Awaaz · CNBC Hong Kong · CNBC Pakistan · CNBC Singapore · Nikkei CNBC · SBS-CNBC Universal Networks International 13th Street Universal · Diva Universal · KidsCo[nu 5] · Movies 24 · Steel[nu 6] · Studio Universal · Syfy · Universal Channel Syfy global channels Asia · Australia · Benelux · France · Germany · Japan · Latin America · Poland · Portugal · Romania · Russia · Serbia · Slovenia · Spain · UK · US NBCUniversal Television Group NBC Studios · NBCUniversal Television Distribution · Telemundo of Puerto Rico Studios · Telemundo Television Studios · Universal Television NBC O&Os California Nonstop · KNBC · KNSD[nu 7] · KNTV · KXAS[nu 7] (DFW Nonstop) · WCAU (NBC Philadelphia Nonstop)  · WMAQ (Chicago Nonstop) · WNBC (New York Nonstop) · WRC (Washington Nonstop) · WTVJ · WVIT Telemundo O&Os KBLR · KDEN · KEJT-LP · KHRR · KNSO[nu 8] · KSTS · KTAZ · KTMD · KVDA[nu 8] · KVEA · KXTX · WKAQ · WNEU[nu 8] · WNJU · WSCV · WSNS ShopNBC O&Os WWDP Internet ventures: Hulu[nu 9] · iVillage · msnbc.com[nu 10] · Television Without Pity · DailyCandy · Fandango Other assets: EMKA, Ltd. · qubo[nu 11] · WSI Corporation[nu 3]  · International Media Distribution Defunct properties: NBC Weather Plus (2004–2008) · Trio (1997–2005) · Diva TV (2007−2012) · Hallmark Channel International (1997−2011) · Discovery Kids (1996-2010) · Discovery Kids on NBC (2002-2006) · DreamWorks Records (1996-2005) · Go Fish Pictures (2000-2007) See also: Vivendi (former NBCUniversal stockholder and current parent company of Universal Music Group) · Comcast (telecommunications company that holds 51%) · General Electric (conglomerate that holds 49%) · MCA Inc. (legal predecessors of NBCUniversal) ^ Co-owned with Dentsu. ^ 50%, with Viacom's Paramount Pictures. ^ a b c Co-owned with Blackstone Group and Bain Capital. ^ minority share, InterMedia Partners is the majority owner. ^ Co-owned with Corus Entertainment and Cookie Jar Group. ^ Co-owned with Mediaset. ^ a b The stations are co-owned with LIN TV in a joint venture (76% owned by NBC, 24% owned by LIN). ^ a b c The stations are owned by NBCUniversal, but are controlled by ZGS Broadcast Holdings. ^ Co-owned with News Corporation and The Walt Disney Company. ^ Co-owned with Microsoft in a joint venture (50% owned by NBC, 50% owned by Microsoft). ^ Co-owned with Corus Entertainment, Classic Media, Nelvana, Scholastic Books and ION Media Networks.

Deepa Mehta, LLD (Hindi: दीपा मेहता) (born 1 January 1950 in Amritsar, Punjab, India)^[2] is a Genie Award-winning Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, most known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire (1996), Earth (1998), and Water (2005); among which Earth was submitted by the Indian government for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and "Water" was submitted by Canada for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, making it Canada's first non-French Canadian film to receive a nomination in that category. She also co-founded Hamilton-Mehta Productions, with her husband, producer David Hamilton in 1996.

Early life and education[link]

Mehta was born in Amritsar in Punjab, India, though her family moved to New Delhi while she was still a child, and her father worked as a film distributor.^[1] Subsequently, Mehta attended Welham Girls High School, a boarding school for girls in Dehradun ^[3] and graduated from the University of Delhi with a degree in philosophy.^[4]

Career[link]

After completing her graduation, Mehta started making short documentaries in India, and in time she met Canadian documentarian Paul Saltzman, who was in India making a film and whom she was to later marry and migrate with to Canada in 1973. Once in Canada, she embarked on her film career as a screenwriter for children's films, she also made a few documentaries including,At 99: A Portrait of Louise Tandy Murch (1975).^[1] In 1991 she made her feature-film directorial debut with Sam & Me (starring Om Puri), a story of the relationship between a young Indian boy and an elderly Jewish gentleman in the Toronto neighbourhood of Parkdale. It won Honorable Mention in the Camera d'Or category of the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. Mehta followed up with Camilla starring Bridget Fonda and Jessica Tandy in 1994. In 2002, she directed Bollywood/Hollywood, for which she won the Genie Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Mehta directed two episodes of George Lucas' television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. The first episode, "Benares, January 1910", aired in 1993. The second episode was aired in 1996 as part of a TV movie titled Young Indiana Jones: Travels with Father.

Mehta also directed several English-language films set in Canada, including The Republic of Love (2003) and Heaven on Earth (2008) which deals with domestic violence and has Preity Zinta playing the female lead. The film premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival.^[5]

Elements trilogy[link]

Mehta is best known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire (1996), Earth (1998) (released in India as 1947: Earth), and Water (2005), which won her much critical acclaim.^[6] Some notable actors that have worked in this trilogy are Aamir Khan, Seema Biswas, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, John Abraham, Rahul Khanna, Lisa Ray, and Nandita Das. These films are also notable for Mehta's collaborative work with author Bapsi Sidhwa. Sidhwa's novel Cracking India, (1991, U.S.; 1992, India; originally published as Ice Candy Man, 1988, England), is the basis for Mehta's 1998 film, Earth. Mehta's film, Water, was later published by Sidhwa as the 2006 novel, Water: A Novel. All three films have soundtracks composed by A. R. Rahman.

[edit] Midnight's Children

Mehta is currently collaborating on the screenplay for Midnight's Children with the novel's author, Salman Rushdie.^[7][8] British-Indian actor Satya Bhabha will play the role of Saleem Sinai^[9] while other roles will be played by Shriya Saran, Seema Biswas, Shabana Azmi, Anupam Kher, Siddharth Narayan, Rahul Bose, Soha Ali Khan,^[10] Shahana Goswami^[11] and Darsheel Safary.^[12] The film is scheduled to be released in 2012.^[13]

Personal life[link]

In Canada she met and married filmmaker Paul Saltzman whom she divorced in 1993. The couple have a daughter, author Devyani Saltzman. Her daughter is an acclaimed author, curator and cultural critic.

Mehta is currently married to producer David Hamilton.^[14] Her brother, Dilip Mehta is a photojournalist and film director, who directed, Cooking with Stella, which he co-wrote with Deepa.^[4]

Filmography[link]

• Sam and Me (1991)
• Camilla (1994)
• Fire (1996)
• Earth (1998)
• Bollywood/Hollywood (2002)
• The Republic of Love (2003)
• Water (2005)
• Heaven on Earth (2008)
• Cooking with Stella (2008) (co-director)
• Midnight's Children (2012)^[7] - based on the novel by Salman Rushdie
• Komagata Maru (TBA) based on Komagata Maru incident

Awards[link]

• Doctor of Laws, University of Victoria, 2009 ^[15]

See also[link]

• Women's Cinema

References[link]

• Beard, William; Jerry White (2002). "Deepa Mehta as Transnational Fimmaker". North of everything: English-Canadian cinema since 1980. University of Alberta. ISBN 0-88864-390-X. http://books.google.com/books?id=iLNhHWfarosC&pg=PA270&dq=%22Deepa+Mehta%22+-inpublisher:icon&cd=3#v=onepage&q=%22Deepa%20Mehta%22%20-inpublisher%3Aicon&f=falsehttp://books.google.com/books?id=iLNhHWfarosC&pg=PA270&dq=%22Deepa+Mehta%22+-inpublisher:icon&cd=3#v=onepage&q=%22Deepa%20Mehta%22%20-inpublisher%3Aicon&f=false. 
• Levitin, Jacqueline; Judith Plessis, Valerie Raoul (2003). "25 An Introduction to Deepa Mehta: Making Films in Canada and India". Women Filmmakers: Refocusing. UBC Press. ISBN 0-7748-0903-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=bxO38D-I1UoC&pg=PA273&dq=%22Deepa+Mehta%22+-inpublisher:icon&cd=4#v=onepage&q=%22Deepa%20Mehta%22%20-inpublisher%3Aicon&f=false. 

External links[link]

• Deepa Mehta at the Internet Movie Database
• Hamilton Mehta Productions

Salman Rushdie
Rushdie at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival Vanity Fair party
Born	Ahmed Salman Rushdie (1947-06-19) 19 June 1947 (age 65) Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India (now Mumbai, Maharashtra, India)
Occupation	writer
Nationality	British
Ethnicity	Indian[1]
Alma mater	King's College, Cambridge
Genres	Magic realism Satire Postcolonialism
Subjects	Historical criticism Travel writing
Spouse(s)	Clarissa Luard (1976–1987) Marianne Wiggins (1988–1993) Elizabeth West (1997–2004) Padma Lakshmi (2004–2007)
Influences This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (December 2011) Günter Grass Gabriel García Márquez Italo Calvino Vladimir Nabokov James Joyce Jorge Luis Borges Thomas Pynchon Mikhail Bulgakov Franz Kafka Saul Bellow Christopher Hitchens
Influenced This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (December 2011) Zadie Smith Homi K. Bhabha Taslima Nasrin Christopher Hitchens

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (Hindi: अहमद सलमान रुशदी (Devanagari), احمد سلمان رشدی (Nastaʿlīq);  /sælˈmɑːn ˈrʊʃdi/;^[2] born 19 June 1947) is a British Indian novelist and essayist. His second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981. Much of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent. He is said to combine magical realism with historical fiction; his work is concerned with the many connections, disruptions and migrations between East and West.

His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was the centre of a major controversy, provoking protests from Muslims in several countries, some violent. Death threats were made against him, including a fatwā issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, on 14 February 1989.

Rushdie was appointed Commandeur dans Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in January 1999.^[3] In June 2007, Queen Elizabeth II dubbed him Knight Bachelor for his services to literature.^[4] In 2008, The Times ranked him thirteenth on its list of the fifty greatest British writers since 1945.^[5]

Since 2000, Rushdie has "lived mostly near Union Square" in New York City.^[6] In 2007 he began a five-year term as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he has also deposited his archives.^[7] In May 2008 he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.^[8]

His latest novel is Luka and the Fire of Life, published in November 2010. Earlier the same year, he announced that he was writing his memoirs.^[9]

Early life and family background[link]

The only son of Anis Ahmed Rushdie, a University of Cambridge-educated lawyer turned businessman, and Negin Bhatt, a teacher, Rushdie was born in Bombay, India, into a Muslim family of Kashmiri descent.^[10][11][12] He was educated at Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai, Rugby School, and King's College, University of Cambridge, where he studied history.

Career[link]

Copywriter[link]

Rushdie's first career was as a copywriter, working for the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, where he came up with "irresistibubble" for Aero and "Naughty but Nice" for cream cakes, and for the agency Ayer Barker, for whom he wrote the memorable line "That'll do nicely" for American Express. It was while he was at Ogilvy that he wrote Midnight's Children, before becoming a full-time writer.^[13][14][15] John Hegarty of Bartle Bogle Hegarty has criticised Rushdie for not referring to his copywriting past frequently enough, although conceding: "He did write crap ads ... admittedly."^[16]

Major literary work[link]

His first novel, Grimus, a part-science fiction tale, was generally ignored by the public and literary critics. His next novel, Midnight's Children, catapulted him to literary notability. It significantly shaped the course that Indian writing in English followed over the next decade, and is regarded by many as one of the great books of the last 100 years.^{[citation needed]} This work won the 1981 Booker Prize and, in 1993 and 2008, was awarded the Best of the Bookers as the best novel to have received the prize during its first 25 and 40 years.^[17] Midnight's Children follows the life of a child, born at the stroke of midnight as India gained its independence, who is endowed with special powers and a connection to other children born at the dawn of a new and tumultuous age in the history of the Indian sub-continent and the birth of the modern nation of India. The character of Saleem Sinai has been compared to Rushdie.^[18]

After Midnight's Children, Rushdie wrote Shame (1983), in which he depicts the political turmoil in Pakistan, basing his characters on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Shame won France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book) and was a close runner-up for the Booker Prize. Both these works of postcolonial literature are characterised by a style of magic realism and the immigrant outlook that Rushdie is very conscious of as a member of the Indian diaspora.

Rushdie wrote a non-fiction book about Nicaragua in the 1980s, The Jaguar Smile (1987). The book has a political focus and is based on his first-hand experiences and research at the scene of Sandinista political experiments.

His most controversial work, The Satanic Verses, was published in 1988 (see section below). Rushdie has published many short stories, including those collected in East, West (1994). The Moor's Last Sigh, a family epic ranging over some 100 years of India's history was published in 1995. The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999) presents an alternative history of modern rock music. The song of the same name by U2 is one of many song lyrics included in the book, hence Rushdie is credited as the lyricist. He also wrote "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" in 1990.

Salman Rushdie presenting his book Shalimar the Clown

Rushdie has had a string of commercially successful and critically acclaimed novels. His 2005 novel Shalimar the Clown received, in India, the prestigious Hutch Crossword Book Award, and was, in Britain, a finalist for the Whitbread Book Awards. It was shortlisted for the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.^[19]

In his 2002 non-fiction collection Step Across This Line, he professes his admiration for the Italian writer Italo Calvino and the American writer Thomas Pynchon, among others. His early influences included James Joyce, Günter Grass, Jorge Luis Borges, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Lewis Carroll. Rushdie was a personal friend of Angela Carter and praised her highly in the foreword for her collection Burning your Boats.

In 2012, Salman Rushdie became one of the first major authors to embrace Booktrack--a company that synchronises ebooks with customised soundtracks to create an immersive reading experience—when he published his short story In the South on the platform.^[20]

Other activities[link]

Rushdie has quietly mentored younger Indian (and ethnic-Indian) writers, influenced an entire generation of Indo-Anglian writers, and is an influential writer in postcolonial literature in general.^[21] He has received many plaudits for his writings, including the European Union's Aristeion Prize for Literature, the Premio Grinzane Cavour (Italy), and the Writer of the Year Award in Germany and many of literature's highest honours.^[22] Rushdie was the President of PEN American Center from 2004 to 2006.

He opposed the British government's introduction of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, something he writes about in his contribution to Free Expression Is No Offence, a collection of essays by several writers, published by Penguin in November 2005.

Salman Rushdie having a discussion with Emory University students

In 2006, Rushdie joined the Emory University faculty as Distinguished Writer in Residence for a five-year term.^[23] Though he enjoys writing, Salman Rushdie says that he would have become an actor if his writing career had not been successful. Even from early childhood, he dreamed of appearing in Hollywood movies (which he later realised in his frequent cameo appearances).

Rushdie includes fictional television and movie characters in some of his writings. He had a cameo appearance in the film Bridget Jones's Diary based on the book of the same name, which is itself full of literary in-jokes. On 12 May 2006, Rushdie was a guest host on The Charlie Rose Show, where he interviewed Indo-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta, whose 2005 film, Water, faced violent protests. He appears in the role of Helen Hunt's obstetrician-gynecologist in the film adaptation (Hunt's directorial debut) of Elinor Lipman's novel Then She Found Me. In September 2008, and again in March 2009, he appeared as a panellist on the HBO program "Real Time With Bill Maher".

Rushdie is currently collaborating on the screenplay for the cinematic adaptation of his novel Midnight's Children with director Deepa Mehta. The film will be called Midnight's Children.^[24][25] While casting is still in progress, Seema Biswas, Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das,^[26] and Irrfan Khan are confirmed as participating in the film.^[27] Mehta has stated that production will begin in September, 2010.^[28]

Rushdie announced in June 2011 that he had written the first draft of a script for a new television series for the U.S. cable network Showtime, a project on which he will also serve as an executive producer. The new series, to be called The Next People, will be, according to Rushie, "a sort of paranoid science-fiction series, people disappearing and being replaced by other people." The idea of a television series was suggested by his U.S. agents, said Rushdie, who felt that television would allow him more creative control than feature film. The Next People is being made by the British film production company Working Title, the firm behind such projects as Four Weddings and a Funeral and Shaun of the Dead.^[29]

Rushdie is a member of the advisory board of The Lunchbox Fund,^[30] a non-profit organisation which provides daily meals to students of township schools in Soweto of South Africa. He is also a member of the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America,^[31] an advocacy group representing the interests of atheistic and humanistic Americans in Washington, D.C. In November 2010 he became a founding patron of Ralston College, a new liberal arts college that has adopted as its motto a Latin translation of a phrase ("free speech is life itself") from an address he gave at Columbia University in 1991 to mark the two-hundredth anniversary of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^[32]

He took on Facebook over the use of his name in 2011. He won. Rushdie had asked to use his middle name Salman, which he is most recognised by. He described his online identity crisis in a series of messages posted on Twitter, among them ""Dear #Facebook, forcing me to change my FB name from Salman to Ahmed Rushdie is like forcing J. Edgar to become John Hoover" and "Or, if F. Scott Fitzgerald was on #Facebook, would they force him to be Francis Fitzgerald? What about F. Murray Abraham?" Messages such as these were then circulated online. Facebook eventually relented and allowed him to use the name by which he is universally known.^[33][34]

[edit] The Satanic Verses and the fatwā

The publication of The Satanic Verses in September 1988 caused immediate controversy in the Islamic world because of what was perceived as an irreverent depiction of the prophet Muhammad. The title refers to a disputed Muslim tradition that is related in the book. According to this tradition, Muhammad (Mahound in the book) added verses (sura) to the Qur'an accepting three goddesses who used to be worshipped in Mecca as divine beings. According to the legend, Muhammad later revoked the verses, saying the devil tempted him to utter these lines to appease the Meccans (hence the "Satanic" verses). However, the narrator reveals to the reader that these disputed verses were actually from the mouth of the Archangel Gibreel. The book was banned in many countries with large Muslim communities. (12 total: India, Bangladesh, Sudan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Thailand, Tanzania, Indonesia, Singapore, Venezuela and Pakistan)

On 14 February 1989, a fatwā requiring Rushdie's execution was proclaimed on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iran at the time, calling the book "blasphemous against Islam" (chapter IV of the book depicts the character of an Imam in exile who returns to incite revolt from the people of his country with no regard for their safety). A bounty was offered for Rushdie's death, and he was thus forced to live under police protection for several years. On 7 March 1989, the United Kingdom and Iran broke diplomatic relations over the Rushdie controversy.

The publication of the book and the fatwā sparked violence around the world, with bookstores firebombed. Muslim communities in several nations in the West held public rallies, burning copies of the book. Several people associated with translating or publishing the book were attacked, seriously injured, and even killed.^{[note 1]} Many more people died in riots in some countries. Despite the danger posed by the fatwā, Rushdie made a public appearance at London's Wembley Stadium on 11 August 1993 during a concert by U2. In 2010, U2 bassist Adam Clayton recalled that "[lead vocalist] Bono had been calling Salman Rushdie from the stage every night on the Zoo TV tour. When we played Wembley, Salman showed up in person and the stadium erupted. You [could] tell from [drummer] Larry Mullen, Jr.'s face that we weren't expecting it. Salman was a regular visitor after that. He had a backstage pass and he used it as often as possible. For a man who was supposed to be in hiding, it was remarkably easy to see him around the place."^[35]

On 24 September 1998, as a precondition to the restoration of diplomatic relations with Britain, the Iranian government, then headed by Mohammad Khatami, gave a public commitment that it would "neither support nor hinder assassination operations on Rushdie."^[36][37]

Hardliners in Iran have continued to reaffirm the death sentence.^[38] In early 2005, Khomeini's fatwā was reaffirmed by Iran's current spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to Muslim pilgrims making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.^[39] Additionally, the Revolutionary Guards have declared that the death sentence on him is still valid.^[40] Iran has rejected requests to withdraw the fatwā on the basis that only the person who issued it may withdraw it,^[39] and the person who issued it – Ayatollah Khomeini – has been dead since 1989.

Rushdie has reported that he still receives a "sort of Valentine's card" from Iran each year on 14 February letting him know the country has not forgotten the vow to kill him. He said, "It's reached the point where it's a piece of rhetoric rather than a real threat."^[41] Despite the threats on Rushdie, he has publicly said that his family has never been threatened and that his mother (who lived in Pakistan during the later years of her life) even received outpourings of support.^[42]

A former bodyguard to Rushdie, Ron Evans, planned to publish a book recounting the behaviour of the author during the time he was in hiding. Evans claimed that Rushdie tried to profit financially from the fatwa and was suicidal, but Rushdie dismissed the book as a "bunch of lies" and took legal action against Ron Evans, his co-author and their publisher.^[43] On 26 August 2008 Rushdie received an apology at the High Court in London from all three parties.^[44] A memoir of his years of hiding, Joseph Anton, is due to be published 18 September 2012. Joseph Anton was Rushdie's secret alias.^[45]

Failed assassination attempt and Hezbollah's comments[link]

On 3 August 1989, while Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh was priming a book bomb loaded with RDX explosives in a hotel in Paddington, Central London, the bomb exploded prematurely, destroying two floors of the hotel and killing Mazeh. A previously unknown Lebanese group, the Organization of the Mujahidin of Islam, said he died preparing an attack "on the apostate Rushdie". There is a shrine in Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery for Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh that says he was "Martyred in London, 3 August 1989. The first martyr to die on a mission to kill Salman Rushdie." Mazeh's mother was invited to relocate to Iran, and the Islamic World Movement of Martyrs' Commemoration built his shrine in the cemetery that holds thousands of Iranian soldiers slain in the Iran–Iraq War.^[36] During the 2006 Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared that "If there had been a Muslim to carry out Imam Khomeini's fatwā against the renegade Salman Rushdie, this rabble who insult our Prophet Mohammed in Denmark, Norway and France would not have dared to do so. I am sure there are millions of Muslims who are ready to give their lives to defend our prophet's honour and we have to be ready to do anything for that."^[46] James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation testified before the United States Congress that a "March 1989" [sic] explosion in Britain was a Hezbollah attempt to assassinate Rushdie that failed when a bomb exploded prematurely, killing a Hezbollah activist in London.^[47]

[edit] International Guerillas

In 1990, soon after the publication of The Satanic Verses, a Pakistani film entitled International Gorillay (International Guerillas) was released that depicted Rushdie as plotting to cause the downfall of Pakistan by opening a chain of casinos and discos in the country. The film was popular with Pakistani audiences, and it "presents Rushdie as a Rambo-like figure pursued by four Pakistani guerrillas".^[48] The British Board of Film Classification refused to allow it a certificate, as "it was felt that the portrayal of Rushdie might qualify as criminal libel, causing a breach of the peace as opposed to merely tarnishing his reputation."^[49] This effectively prevented the release of the film in Britain. Two months later, however, Rushdie himself wrote to the board, saying that while he thought the film "a distorted, incompetent piece of trash", he would not sue if it were released.^[49] He later said, "If that film had been banned, it would have become the hottest video in town: everyone would have seen it".^[49] While the film was a great hit in Pakistan, it went virtually unnoticed in the West.^[49]

2012 Jaipur Literature Festival events[link]