Tuesday, August 26, 2014

A00011 - Simin Behbahani, The Lioness of Iran


Simin Behbahani, Outspoken Iranian Poet, Dies at 87

By 





    Simin Behbahani at a peace conference in Tehran in 2007. Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters

    Simin Behbahani, a prizewinning poet known as “the lioness of Iran” for using her verse as a means of courageous social protest, died on Tuesday in Tehran. She was 87.
    Her death was announced by the Iranian Republic News agency, the country’s official information service.
    Ms. Behbahani wrote more than 600 poems, collected in 20 books, on subjects as diverse as earthquakes, revolution, war, poverty, prostitution, freedom of speech and her own plastic surgery. In poems and public speeches, she confronted Iran’s religious authorities, challenging them on practices like the stoning of women who commit adultery.
    “She became the voice of the Iranian people,” Farzaneh Milani, a University of Virginia professor who translated many of her poems into English, said in an interview on Thursday. “She was the elegant voice of dissent, of conscience, of nonviolence, of refusal to be ideological.”
    In 2006, the Iranian authorities shut down an opposition newspaper for printing one of her works. In 2010, when she was 82 and nearly blind, she was barred from boarding a Paris-bound plane and interrogated through the night regarding poems she had written about Iran’s 2009 elections, which were considered fraudulent by government opponents.
    “Stop this extravagance, this reckless throwing of my country to the wind,” she wrote in “Stop Throwing My Country to the Wind.” The poem ended:
    You may wish to have me burned, or decide to stone me
    But in your hand match or stone will lose their power to harm me.
    In a 2011 video message to the Iranian people in celebration of the Persian New Year, President Obama said Ms. Behbahani’s “words have moved the world” and quoted a poem she wrote in 1982, “My Country, I Will Build You Again”: “Old I may be, but given the chance, I will learn.”
    Fittingly, it was poetry that brought her parents together.
    Her mother, Fakhr-e Ozma Arghun, had sent a poem she wrote to a magazine edited by Abbas Khalili, a translator and poet himself. He liked the poem and was surprised to find it had been written by a woman. He said he wanted to marry the poet, whom he had not yet met.
    He did marry her, but three days after their wedding he was arrested and exiled for articles that offended the ruling Pahlavi dynasty. He did not see his daughter — born Siminbar Khalili on July 20, 1927, in Tehran — until she was 14 months old, and did not see her again until she was 11.
    In the meantime, the girl’s parents divorced. Simin’s mother raised her to love literature and, when Simin was 14, sent a poem Simin had written to a literary journal, which published it. In 1951, Ms. Behbahani published her first book of poems.
    One of her first innovations was with the ghazal, a sonnetlike Persian poetic form. It had traditionally been written from the perspective of a male lover admiring a woman, but Ms. Behbahani made the woman the protagonist. She later used the ghazal form to write about all manner of subjects, including the Iran-Iraq war. She also used her skill in writing about love to compose lyrics for popular songs.
    Ms. Behbahani studied to be a midwife before pursuing a law degree, which she earned but never used. She taught high school — physics and chemistry, then literature — for more than 20 years.
    Among the many literary awards she won was, in 2013, the Janus Pannonius Poetry Prize from the Hungarian PEN Club, which carries a 50,000-euro prize and is sometimes called the Nobel Prize for poetry. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
    Ms. Behbahani’s first marriage, to Hassan Behbahani, ended in divorce. Her second marriage, to Manuchehr Koushyar, ended with his death in 1984. She is survived by her sons, Ali and Hossein Behbahani; her daughter, Omid Behbahani; and several grandchildren.
    Jahan News, a hard-line Iranian website, once characterized Ms. Behbahani’s writing as treasonous, saying, “Her poetry, with its slanderous and scandalous way of addressing Iranians, only serves to make Iran’s enemies happy.”
    But Ms. Behbahani viewed herself as patriotic, insisting her impassioned writings and public statements were intended only to make Iran better. The poem President Obama quoted began:
    My Country, I will build you again,
    If need be, with bricks made from my life
    I will build columns to support your roof
    If need be, with my bones.

    *****

    Simin Behbahāni[1] (Persian: سیمین بهبهانی‎‎; 20 June 1927 – 19 August 2014) was a prominent Iranian poet, activist and translator. She was Iran's national poet and an icon of the modern Persian poetry, Iranian intelligentsia and literati who affectionately refer to her as the lioness of Iran.[2] She was nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in literature, and has "received many literary accolades around the world."[3]

    Biography[edit]


    Board of Governors of Association of Patriotic Women, Tehran, 1922
    Simin Behbahani, whose real name was Simin Khalili (Persian: سیمین خلیلی‎)[4] (سيمين خليلی), was the daughter of Abbās Khalili (عباس خلیلی), poet, writer and Editor of the Eghdām (Action) newspaper,[5] and Fakhr-e Ozmā Arghun (فخرعظمی ارغون), poet and teacher of the French language.[6] Abbās Khalili (1893–1971) wrote poetry in both Persian and Arabicand translated some 1100 verses of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh into Arabic.[7] Fakhr-e Ozmā Arghun (1898–1966) was one of the progressive women of her time and a member of Kānun-e Nesvān-e Vatan'khāh (Association of Patriotic Women) between 1925 and 1929. In addition to her membership of Hezb-e Democrāt (Democratic Party) and Kānun-e Zanān(Women's Association), she was for a time (1932) Editor of the Āyandeh-ye Iran (Future of Iran) newspaper. She taught French at the secondary schools Nāmus, Dār ol-Mo'allemāt and No'bāvegān in Tehran.[8]
    Simin Behbahani started writing poetry at twelve and published her first poem at the age of fourteen. She used the "Char Pareh" style of Nima Yooshij and subsequently turned to ghazal. Behbahani contributed to a historic development by adding theatrical subjects and daily events and conversations to poetry using the ghazal style of poetry. She has expanded the range of the traditional Persian verse forms and has produced some of the most significant works of the Persian literature in the 20th century.
    She was President of The Iranian Writers' Association and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999 and 2002.
    In early March 2010 she could not leave the country due to official prohibitions. As she was about to board a plane to Paris, police detained her and interrogated her "all night long". She was released but without her passport. Her English translator (Farzaneh Milani) expressed surprise at the arrest as detention as Behbahani was then 82 and nearly blind. "We all thought that she was untouchable."[3]

    Death[edit]

    Behbahani was hospitalized in Tehran on 6 August 2014. She remained in a coma from 6 August until her death 19 August 2014. She died in Tehran's Pars Hospital and she was 87. Her funeral was held on 22 August in Vahdat Hall and her body was buried at Behesht-e Zahra.

    Works[edit]

    • The Broken Lute [Seh-tar-e Shekasteh, 1951]
    • Footprint [Ja-ye Pa, 1954]
    • Chandelier [Chelcheragh, 1955]
    • Marble [Marmar 1961]
    • Resurrection [Rastakhiz, 1971]
    • A Line of Speed and Fire [Khatti ze Sor'at va Atash, 1980]
    • Arzhan Plain [Dasht-e Arzhan, 1983]
    • Paper Dress [Kaghazin Jameh, 1992]
    • A Window of freedom [Yek Daricheh Azadi, 1995]
    • Collected Poems [Tehran 2003]
    • Maybe It's the Messiah [Shayad ke Masihast, Tehran 2003] Selected Poems, translated by Ismail Salami
    • A Cup of Sin, Selected poems, translated by Farzaneh Milani and Kaveh Safa

    Awards and honours[edit]

    • 1998 Human Rights Watch Hellman-Hammet Grant
    • 1999 Carl von Ossietzky Medal
    • 2006 Norwegian Authors' Union Freedom of Expression Prize
    • 2009 mtvU Poet Laureate[9]
    • 2013 Janus Pannonius Poetry Prize[10]

    *****

    Simin Behbahāni (Persian: سیمین بهبهانی‎‎) (June 20, 1927 – August 19, 2014) was a prominent Iranian poet, activist and translator. She was Iran's national poet and an icon of the modern Persian poetry, Iranian intelligentsia and literati who affectionately refer to her as the lioness of Iran.  She was nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in literature, and received many literary accolades from around the world.

    Simin Behbahani, whose real name was Simin Khalili (Persian: سیمین خلیلی‎) (سيمين خليلی), was the daughter of Abbās Khalili (عباس خلیلی), poet, writer and editor of the Eghdām (Action) newspaper, and Fakhr-e Ozmā Arghun (فخرعظمی ارغون), poet and teacher of the French language. Abbās Khalili (1893–1971) wrote poetry in both Persian and Arabic and translated some 1100 verses of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh into Arabic. Fakhr-e Ozmā Arghun (1898–1966) was one of the progressive women of her time and a member of Kānun-e Nesvān-e Vatan'khāh (Association of Patriotic Women) between 1925 and 1929. In addition to her membership in Hezb-e Democrāt (Democratic Party) and Kānun-e Zanān (Women's Association), she was, for a time (1932), editor of the Āyandeh-ye Iran (Future of Iran) newspaper. She taught French at the secondary schools Nāmus, Dār ol-Mo'allemāt and No'bāvegān in Tehran.

    Simin Behbahani started writing poetry at twelve and published her first poem at the age of fourteen. She used the "Char Pareh" style of Nima Yooshij and subsequently turned to ghazal.  Behbahani contributed to a historic development by adding theatrical subjects and daily events and conversations to poetry using the ghazal style of poetry. She expanded the range of the traditional Persian verse forms and produced some of the most significant works of the Persian literature in the 20th century.

    Behbahani was President of The Iranian Writers' Association and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999 and 2002.

    In early March 2010, Behbahani prohibited from leaving the country due to official prohibitions. As she was about to board a plane to Paris, police detained her and interrogated her "all night long". She was released but without her passport. 

    Behbahani was hospitalized in Tehran on August 6, 2014. She remained in a coma from August 6 until her death August 19, 2014. She died in Tehran's Pars Hospital. Her funeral was held on August 22 in Vahdat Hall and her body was buried at Behesht-e Zahra. 

    The literary works of Simin Behbahani includes the following:
    • The Broken Lute [Seh-tar-e Shekasteh, 1951]
    • Footprint [Ja-ye Pa, 1954]
    • Chandelier [Chelcheragh, 1955]
    • Marble [Marmar 1961]
    • Resurrection [Rastakhiz, 1971]
    • A Line of Speed and Fire [Khatti ze Sor'at va Atash, 1980]
    • Arzhan Plain [Dasht-e Arzhan, 1983]
    • Paper Dress [Kaghazin Jameh, 1992]
    • A Window of Freedom [Yek Daricheh Azadi, 1995]
    • Collected Poems [Tehran 2003]
    • Maybe It's the Messiah [Shayad ke Masihast, Tehran 2003] Selected Poems, translated by Ismail Salami
    • A Cup of Sin, Selected poems, translated by Farzaneh Milani and Kaveh Safa
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    Thursday, August 14, 2014

    A00010 - Maryam Mirzakhani, First Woman to Receive Fields Medal

    *****

    Maryam Mirzakhani (Persian: مریم میرزاخانی‎; born May[1] 1977) is an Iranian mathematician, and a full professor of mathematics (since 1 September 2008) at Stanford University.[5][6][7]
    Her research interests include Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic theory, and symplectic geometry.[1] In 2014, Mirzakhani became the first woman, as well as the first Iranian and the second person from the Middle East (after Elon Lindenstrauss), to be awarded the Fields Medal.[8][9][10][11][12]
    Mirzakhani found international recognition as a brilliant teenager after receiving gold medals at both the 1994 International Mathematical Olympiad (Hong Kong) and the 1995 International Mathematical Olympiad (Toronto),[13]where she was the first Iranian student to finish with a perfect score.[13][14][15]

    Early life and education[edit]

    Maryam Mirzakhani was born in 1977 in Tehran, Iran. She went to high school in the city at Farzanegan, National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents (NODET). She competed and was recognized internationally for her math skills, receiving gold medals at both the 1994 International Mathematical Olympiad (Hong Kong) and the 1995 International Mathematical Olympiad (Toronto),[13] where she was the first Iranian student to finish with a perfect score.[13][16][17]
    She obtained her BSc in mathematics (1999) from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. She went to the United States for graduate work, earning a PhD from Harvard University (2004), where she worked under the supervision of the Fields Medalist Curtis McMullen. She was also a 2004 research fellow of the Clay Mathematics Institute and a professor at Princeton University.[18]

    Research work[edit]

    Mirzakhani has made several contributions to the theory of moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces. In her early work, Maryam Mirzakhani discovered a formula expressing the volume of a moduli space with a given genus as a polynomial in the number of boundary components. This led her to obtain a new proof for the formula discovered by Edward Witten and Maxim Kontsevich on the intersection numbers of tautology classes on moduli space,[5] as well as an asymptotic formula for the growth of the number of simple closed geodesics on a compact hyperbolic surface.[19] Her subsequent work has focused on Teichmüller dynamics of moduli space. In particular, she was able to prove the long-standing conjecture that William Thurston's earthquake flow on Teichmüller space is ergodic.[20]
    Mirzakhani was awarded the Fields Medal in 2014 for "her outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces".[21]She was congratulated for her win by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.[8]
    At the time of the award, Wisconsin professor Jordan Ellenberg explained her research to a popular audience:
    ... [Her] work expertly blends dynamics with geometry. Among other things, she studies billiards. But now, in a move very characteristic of modern mathematics, it gets kind of meta: She considers not just one billiard table, but the universe of all possible billiard tables. And the kind of dynamics she studies doesn't directly concern the motion of the billiards on the table, but instead a transformation of the billiard table itself, which is changing its shape in a rule-governed way; if you like, the table itself moves like a strange planet around the universe of all possible tables ... This isn't the kind of thing you do to win at pool, but it's the kind of thing you do to win a Fields Medal. And it's what you need to do in order to expose the dynamics at the heart of geometry; for there's no question that they're there.[22]

    Personal life[edit]

    She is married to Jan Vondrak, a theoretical computer scientist who works at IBM Research. They have a daughter named Anahita.[23][24]

    Awards and honours[edit]

    • Fields Medal 2014[9][25][26]
    • Plenary speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM 2014)
    • Clay Research Award 2014[27]
    • The 2013 AMS Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics. "Presented every two years by the American Mathematical Society, the Satter Prize recognizes an outstanding contribution to mathematics research by a woman in the preceding six years. The prize was awarded on Thursday, 10 January 2013, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego."[28]
    • Invited to talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2010, on the topic of "Topology and Dynamical Systems & ODE" [29]
    • AMS Blumenthal Award 2009 [28]
    • Clay Mathematics Institute Research Fellow 2004[30]
    • Harvard Junior Fellowship Harvard University, 2003[1]
    • Merit fellowship Harvard University, 2003[1]
    • IPM Fellowship The Institute for theoretical Physics and Mathematics, Tehran, Iran, 1995–99[1]
    *****


    Top Math Prize Has Its First Female Winner

    By 



      Winners of the 2014 Fields Medal in mathematics, from left: Maryam Mirzakhani, Artur Avila, Manjul Bhargava and Martin Hairer. International Mathematical Union

      An Iranian mathematician is the first woman ever to receive a Fields Medal, often considered to be mathematics’ equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
      The recipient, Maryam Mirzakhani, a professor at Stanford, was one of four winners honored on Wednesday at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Seoul, South Korea.
      The Fields Medal is given every four years, and several can be awarded at once. The other recipients this year are Artur Avila of the National Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics in Brazil and the National Center for Scientific Research in France; Manjul Bhargava of Princeton University; and Martin Hairer of the University of Warwick in England.
      The 52 medalists from previous years were all men.
      “This is a great honor. I will be happy if it encourages young female scientists and mathematicians,” Dr. Mirzakhani was quoted as saying in a Stanford news release on Tuesday. “I am sure there will be many more women winning this kind of award in coming years.”
      Ingrid Daubechies, a professor of mathematics at Duke and president of theInternational Mathematical Union, called the news “a great joy” in an email.
      “All researchers in mathematics will tell you that there is no difference between the math done by a woman or a man, and of course the decision of the Fields Medal committee is based only on the results of each candidate,” she wrote. “That said, I bet the vast majority of the mathematicians in the world will be happy that it will no longer be possible to say that ‘the Fields Medal has always been awarded only to men.’ ”
      Much of the research by Dr. Mirzakhani, who was born in Tehran in 1977, has involved the behavior of dynamical systems. There are no exact mathematical solutions for many dynamical systems, even simple ones.
      “What Maryam discovered is that in another regime, the dynamical orbits are tightly constrained to follow algebraic laws,” said Curtis T. McMullen, a professor at Harvard who was Dr. Mirzakhani’s doctoral adviser. “These dynamical systems describe surfaces with many handles, like pretzels, whose shape is evolving over time by twisting and stretching in a precise way. They are related to billiards on tables that are not rectangular but still polygonal, like the regular octagon.”
      Dr. Avila, 35, investigated a different area of dynamical systems, including an understanding of fractals. Dr. Bhargava, 40, was recognized for new methods in the geometry of numbers, especially prime numbers, and Dr. Hairer, 38, made advances in the study of the effect of random noise on partial differential equations, capturing the effect of turbulence on ocean currents or the flow of air around airplane wings.
      While women have reached parity in many academic fields, mathematics is still dominated by men, who earn about 70 percent of the doctoral degrees. The disparity is even more striking at the highest echelons. Since 2003, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has awarded the Abel Prize, recognizing outstanding mathematicians with a monetary award of about $1 million; all 14 recipients so far are men. No woman has won the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, another prestigious award.
      The Fields Medal was conceived by John Charles Fields, a Canadian mathematician, “in recognition of work already done” and as “an encouragement for further achievement.” Judges have interpreted the terms of the Fields trust to mean that the award should usually be limited to mathematicians age 40 or younger.
      Dr. McMullen, himself a Fields medalist, did not speculate on why it had taken so long for a woman to be recognized. “I would prefer to look forward and celebrate this occasion,” he said, “and see it as a sign of positive trends in society and in science.”
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      Wednesday, March 5, 2014

      A00009 - Maryam Durani, Afghan Activist

      Maryam Durani: (Arabic: مَریَم دورانی), is an Afghan activist. Daughter of Haji Mohammad Eisa Durani, Maryam Durani was born in 1987. Hailing from the Muhammadzai tribe, Maryam is a graduate of the business department of American University of Afghanistan and currently she is a third class student of Law and Political Science at Noor University. Maryam Durani was also Kandahar people’s representative in the provincial council. She has served in different positions such as director of Khadijatul Kubra women's association for culture, owner of Merman Radio (special women radio) and as founder of the Kandahar woman advocacy network. She received the World Ten Brave Women’s award on March 8, 2012 as well as a World 100 Influential Figure’s award on April 20, 2012.  She has also received the Brave Woman award from the State of Pennsylvania, the Women Rights Protector’s award from Washington and an Iraq and Afghanistan Female Peace Activist’s appreciation letter from Turkey. She is a broadcaster and the manager of the Merman Radio of Kandahar. On April 6, 2013, she founded the Women's Network (Advocacy) in Kandahar. Maryam also established the Malalai Maiwandi Internet cafe a free women's internet cafe to connect more women to the world in a safe and comfortable space. she opened Malali Maiwandi internet cafe on September 25, 2013 which is the first of its kind in the Afghanistan.  There Afghan women could use the cafe for getting information about current affairs and obtain educational material, which is the main reason why she established the women's cafe. In 2012, she was chosen by Time Magazine as "The 100 Most Influential People in the World".  According to Time, "As the owner and operator of a radio station (Merman Radio) that focuses on women's issues and as a member of the Kandahar provincial council, Durani stands up for the region's women with remarkable bravery." On March 8, 2012, she became a recipient of the prestigious United States Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award.
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      A00008 - Samira Ibrahim, Egyptian Activist

      Samira Ibrahim (Arabic: سميرة إبراهيم‎) (born c. 1987) is an Egyptian activist who came to prominence during the Egyptian revolution .

      On March 9, 2011, she participated in a sit-in at Tahrir Square in Cairo. The military violently dispersed protest participants, and Samira and other women were beaten, given electric shocks, strip searched, and videotaped by the soldiers. They were also subjected to virginity tests. The tests were allegedly carried out to protect the soldiers from claims of rape.

      After succeeding in placing the case in front of a civilian court, a court order was issued in December 2011 to stop the practice of “virginity tests”. However in March 2012, a military court exonerated Dr. Adel El Mogy from charges laid in connection with the virginity testing of Ibrahim.

      Ibrahim vowed to take her case to the international courts.

      In early March 2013, Ibrahim came under criticism after Samuel Tadros, writing in The Weekly Standard, accused her of posting anti-Semitic and anti-American statements on her Twitter account. These statements included quoting Adolf Hitler, writing: "I have discovered with the passage of days, that no act contrary to morality, no crime against society, takes place, except with the Jews having a hand in it. Hitler.” In reaction to a suicide bombing of a bus of Israelis in Bulgaria, she wrote "Today is a very sweet day with a lot of very sweet news.” In 2012, on the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, she tweeted "Today is the anniversary of 9/11. May every year come with America burning".

      The United States State Department subsequently announced that it would not be giving the International Women of Courage Award to Samira Ibrahim in light of these comments.

      Initially, Ibrahim claimed that her Twitter account had been "previously stolen" and that "any tweet on racism and hatred is not me”. However, she later stated "I refuse to apologize to the Zionist lobby in America regarding my previous anti-Zionist statements under pressure from American government therefore they withdrew the award." The United States State Department later stated that Ibrahim had since left the United States to return to Egypt.

      On March 8, 2013, a spokeswoman for the United States State Department stated that "Upon further review, the department has decided not to present her with the award" as American officials "didn't consider some of the public statements that she had made appropriate. They didn't comport with our values" while adding that "There were obviously some problems in our review process, and we're going to do some forensics on how that happened."
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      Tuesday, October 15, 2013

      A00007 - Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani Education Activist

      Malala Yousafzai (Pashto: ملاله یوسفزۍ‎; Urdu: ملالہ یوسف زئی‎; Malālah Yūsafzay) (b. July 12, 1997) is a Pakistani education activist from the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She is known for her activism for rights to education and for women, especially in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. In early 2009, at the age of 11–12, Yousafzai wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC detailing her life under Taliban rule, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls. The following summer, a New York Times documentary was filmed about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region, culminating in the Second Battle of Swat. Yousafzai rose in prominence, giving interviews in print and on television, and she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by South African activist Desmond Tutu.
      On October 9, 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus. In the days immediately following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition, but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, for intensive rehabilitation. On October 12, 2012, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwā against those who tried to kill her, but the Taliban reiterated its intent to kill Yousafzai and her father.

      The assassination attempt sparked a national and international outpouring of support for Yousafzai. The United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown launched a United Nations petition in Yousafzai's name, using the slogan "I am Malala" and demanding that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015 – a petition which helped lead to the ratification of Pakistan's first Right to Education Bill. In the April 29, 2013 issue of Time magazine, Yousafzai was featured on the magazine's front cover and as one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World". She was the winner of Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize and was nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize (which was awarded to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons). On July 12, 2013, Yousafzai spoke at the United Nations to call for worldwide access to education, and in September 2013 she officially opened the Library of Birmingham. Yousafzai was the recipient of the Sakharov Prize for 2013.

      Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997 into a Sunni Muslim family of Pashtun ethnicity. She was given her first name Malala (meaning "grief stricken") after Malalai of Maiwand, a famous Pashtun poet and warrior woman from southern Afghanistan. Her last name, Yousafzai, is that of a large Pashtun tribal confederation that is predominant in Pakistan's Swat Valley, where she grew up. At her house in Mingora, she lived with her two younger brothers, her parents, and two pet chickens.
      Yousafzai was educated in large part by her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, who was a poet, school owner, and an educational activist himself, running a chain of schools known as the Khushal Public School. She once stated to an interviewer that she would like to become a doctor, though later her father encouraged her to become a politician instead. Ziauddin referred to his daughter as something entirely special, permitting her to stay up at night and talk about politics after her two brothers had been sent to bed.
      Yousafzai started speaking about education rights as early as September 2008, when her father took her to Peshawar to speak at the local press club. "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?" Yousafzai asked her audience in a speech covered by newspapers and television channels throughout the region.
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      Thursday, August 8, 2013

      A00006 - Jiah Khan, Bollywood Actress

      *****
      Jiah Khan, born Nafisa Rizvi Khan, (b. February 20, 1988, New York City, New York –  June 3, 2013, Juhu, Mumbai, India) was an American born British Indian actress, model and singer who appeared in Bollywood films. She made her film debut in the 2007 film Ram Gopal Verma's Nishabd for which she was nominated for Filmfare Best Female Debut Award. She was later noted for portraying modern, independent women in Ghajini which was the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2008. Her performance in the latter earned her significant acclaim. She last appeared in Sajid Khan's film Housefull which was the second highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2010.

      On June 4, 2013, Jiah Khan was found dead in her apartment in her residence in the Sagar Sangeet building in Juhu, Mumbai.  She had apparently committed suicide by hanging herself.

      The filmography of Jiah Khan reads as follows:


      YearFilmRoleNotes
      2007NishabdJiaNominated, Filmfare Best Female Debut Award
      2008GhajiniSunita
      2010HousefullDevika
      ***
      Jiah Khan (born Nafisa Rizvi Khan, 20 February 1988 – 3 June 2013) was an American born British Indian actress, model and singer who appeared in Bollywood films.[1] She made her film debut in the 2007 film Ram Gopal Verma's Nishabd for which she was nominated for Filmfare Best Female Debut Award. She was later noted for portraying modern, independent women in Ghajini which was the highest-grossing Bollywood films of 2008. Her performance in the latter earned her significant acclaim. She last appeared in Sajid Khan's directional film Housefull which was her second highest-grossing Bollywood films of 2010.[2]
      On June 4th 2013, she was found dead in her apartment in her residence in the Sagar Sangeet building in Juhu, Mumbai after hanging herself.[3][4]

      Early life[edit source | edit]

      Khan was born on 20 February 1988 into a Muslim family in New York City.[4] She was the daughter of Ali Rizvi Khan, an Indian American and Rabiya Amin, a Hindi film actress in the 1980s from Agra, Uttar Pradesh.[5] Khan grew up in London where she completed her Edexcel O and A Level with a brilliant result of 5 As, before moving to Mumbai to pursue a career in Bollywood.[4] She has two sisters Kavita and Karishma.[6] She was inspired to enter Bollywood after watching Ram Gopal Verma's former protege Urmila Matondkar’s movie Rangeela at the age of six.[7][8]
      Khan was a trained opera singer and had recorded six pop tracks by the time she was 17.[9] Khan studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in Manhattan, though she quit upon receiving a movie offer.[10]

      Career[edit source | edit]

      In 2004, at the age of 16, Khan was to act in Mukesh Bhatt's Tumsa Nahin Dekha but backed out when both she and the director felt the role was too mature for her; she was immediately replaced by Dia Mirza. Two years later, in 2007, at the age of 18,[11] khan made her debut in Ram Gopal Verma's controversial romantic thriller Nishabd,[12] where she acted opposite Amitabh Bachchan. Despite the provocative content in the film, it performed poorly at the box office, and earned mixed reviews from critics.[13]

      Khan at DJ Magazine launch in 2010.
      Nonetheless, Khan received a mostly positive reception for her performance, with critics noting her confidence, attitude, and sex appeal. Raja Sen praised her portrayal of Jia, a seductive, free-spirited teenager, calling her performance "nuanced" and "impressive".[14] Taran Adarsh agrees, saying that "Newcomer Jiah Khan is supremely confident. Loaded with attitude and sex appeal, the newcomer carries off her part with flourish. Her scenes with Bachchan are superb!"[15] Rajeev Masand adds that she is "perfectly cast" for the film.[16] She was also nominated for a Filmfare Best Female Debut Award,[17] however lost to Deepika Padukone.
      The following year, she appeared alongside Aamir Khan and Asin in A.R. Murugadoss's psychological thriller Ghajini, the Hindi remake of its namesake. The film gathered much appreciation from critics, and went on to become the highest grossing Bollywood film of 2008, as well as earn the all-time blockbuster status.[18] Khan's performance attracted mixed reviews, with critics agreeing that her role was "sketchy".[19] Despite this, Sukanya Verma compliments her performance, commenting that Khan "continues to strike as an exquisite and expressive actress."[20]
      Mia had shot for a significant portion of Ken Ghosh's Chance Pe Dance opposite Shahid Kapoor, but was later replaced by Genelia D'souza. While both Khan and UTV have stated that "the reason for her withdrawal from the film was due to her not suiting the character".[21] Khan made her last film appearance in a supporting role for Sajid Khan's Housefull opposite Akshay kumar, Riteish Deshmukh, Deepika Padukone and Lara Dutta in 2010. Housefull was her second highest grossing Bollywood film.
      In the months before her death, she had signed three South Indian films. [6][22]

      Death[edit source | edit]

      Khan committed suicide by hanging herself from a ceiling fan at around 11:45pm in a bedroom of her Juhu residence in Mumbai on the Monday, June 3, 2013,` when her mother Rabiya and sister Kavita were not at home.[23] Her body was taken to the casualty morgue at the JJ Hospital in Byculla, for a forensic examination and autopsy.[24] Her body was brought back to her residence around 7am on Wednesday, June 5, 2013, following the post-mortem.[25]
      In the same day her Namaz-e-janaza took place at Sonapur Kabar Walla Masjid and she was buried at Juhu Muslim cemetery after Dhuhr prayer as per Islamic rites. Bollywood actors in attendance included Aamir Khan, Kiran Rao, Riteish Deshmukh, Siddharth Mallya, Sophie Choudry, Urvashi Dholakia, Prem Chopra, Ranjeet, Deepak Parashar, Sanjay Khan and Nagma in attendance.[26][27] Bollywood stars reacted with shock at her death.[28]
      On June 7, 2013, a six-page suicide note was found by her sister.[29] The note is reported to indicate that she had planned to end her life. A transcript was released by Khan's family which included mention to a recent abortion.[30]

      On June 8, 2013 Khan's condolence meeting was held at Vile Parle Medical Club to pray Jiah. Bollywood actors in attendance included Aamir Khan, Deepika Padukone, Randhir Kapoor, Prateik Babbar, Sanjay Kapoor, Shweta Pandit, Kiran Rao, Urvashi Dholakia, Ranjeet, Deepak Parashar, Sanjay Khan and Nagma.

      Suraj Pancholi, who was allegedly in a live-in relationship with Khan, was taken into custody in association with her suicide on 10 June, 2013.[31] The Bombay High Court granted him bail on 2 July 2013.[32]

      Filmography[edit source | edit]

      YearFilmRoleNotes
      2007NishabdJiaNominated, Filmfare Best Female Debut Award
      2008GhajiniSunita
      2010HousefullDevika

      *****
      Jiah Khan was an American born British Indian actress, model and singer who appeared in Bollywood films. She made her film debut in the 2007 film Ram Gopal Verma's Nishabd for which she was nominated for Filmfare Best Female Debut Award.
      Born: February 20, 1988, New York City
      Died: June 2, 2013, Juhu, Mumbai, India
      Height: 5' 6" (1.68 m)
      Buried: June 5, 2013
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