Gambhir says possess only one voter ID; hits back at AAP
New Delhi: Hitting back at the AAP, cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir Sunday asserted that he possessed only one voter identity card, adding that the ruling party in Delhi was making baseless allegations against him as it did not have any vision for the people.
Gambhir is fighting against AAP's Atishi from the East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency this general elections.
"I have only one voter ID card from Rajender Nagar. I used to live with my maternal grandparents as a child at Ramjas Road (in Karolbagh), but I never voted from or applied for any voter identity card from there," he told PTI.
The BJP candidate was responding to Atishi's claim that he had two voter identity cards from Rajender Nagar and Karolbagh constituencies.
He alleged the AAP candidate was making allegations against him as she had nothing to talk about with voters during campaigning. "When you have no vision for the people or nothing else to talk about, you make allegations like these," Gambhir said.
Meanwhile, a Delhi court had on Friday decided to hear Atishi's criminal complaint against Gambhir in this regard on May 1.
The AAP candidate had filed the complaint against Gambhir for allegedly enrolling as a voter in more than one constituency in violation the Representation of the People Act(RPA).
She had also raised objection over the nomination papers filed by the former cricketer which were rejected by the returning officer of the polls.
Gambhir said he believed in "positive politics" and would campaign with a vision to make East Delhi one of the best Lok Sabha constituencies in Delhi, and avoid indulging in blame game with his opponents in the polls.
Congress has fielded former Delhi minister Arvinder Singh Lovely from the seat.
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Indian-origin translator Padma Viswanathan shortlisted for International Booker Prize 2026
New Delhi (PTI): Padma Viswanathan, a Canadian-American writer of Indian-origin, has made it to the 2026 International Booker Prize shortlist as the English translator of a Portuguese language novella.
"On Earth As It Is Beneath" by Brazilian author Ana Paula Maia, described by judges as a "brutal, haunting and hypnotic novella set in a remote Brazilian penal colony, where the boundaries between justice and cruelty collapse", is among the six worldwide contenders for the coveted literary honour.
The annual prize worth GBP 50,000, divided equally between the author and translator, was won last year by Kannada writer-activist Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi for the short story collection "Heart Lamp". Each shortlisted title guarantees a prize of GBP 5,000 -- also split 50-50 between the book’s author and English translator.
"What struck us most is how spare, unflinching, uncompromising and relentless it is. Maia builds an entire moral universe out of very little: a remote prison, a handful of men, and the rituals of punishment that govern their lives.
"The novel reads almost like a dark fable about power, where brutality is ordinary and civilisation feels frighteningly thin," the judging panel, which also include award-winning Indian novelist and columnist Nilanjana S. Roy, said of the work translated by US-based Viswanathan.
The 58-year-old professor of creative writing at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville is an accomplished playwright and author, whose novels have been published in eight countries.
The list, announced on Tuesday, is dominated by women, with five of the six authors and four of the six translators being female. The authors and translators represent eight countries -- Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Taiwan, the UK and the United States.
"With narratives that capture moments from across the past century, these books reverberate with history. While there’s heartbreak, brutality and isolation among these stories, their lasting effect is energising," said author Natasha Brown, chair of this year’s judging panel.
The other books include "The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran" by Shida Bazyar and translated from German by Ruth Martin; "She Who Remains" by Rene Karabash and translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel; "The Director" by Daniel Kehlmann and translated from German by Ross Benjamin; "Taiwan Travelogue" by Yáng Shuāng-zi and translated from Taiwanese by Lin King; and "The Witch" by Marie Ndiaye and translated from French by Jordan Stump.
The announcement of the winning book will take place on May 19 at a ceremony at Tate Modern in London.
The International Booker Prize is awarded annually for a single work of fiction -- either a novel or a collection of short stories -- written in another language, translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland.
According to the organisers, the 2025 winner "Heart Lamp" –- the first collection of short stories to win the prize and the first translated from Kannada –- rapidly sold out in the UK in the subsequent days, with the UK publisher, And Other Stories, immediately reprinting 40,000 copies.
