Taslima to return to India next month

According to a top government official, "Taslima Nasreen has conveyed to the central government that she wants to come back to India. The Ministry of External Affairs doesn't have any problem with that. She has informed us that she is coming here in August."

The central government's permission to Nasreen to go to Kolkata is bound to irk the Left further as its government in West Bengal had forced the controversial writer out of Kolkata, citing "law and order problem" last year.

As a result, she had to stay confined in Delhi for almost a year under heavy security and eventually left the country, accusing the state and the central governments of "suffocating" her.

Taslima Nasreen has also said that she needs to go back to Kolkata, among other reasons, "to look after her pet cats". Nasreen has as many as seven pet cats in her flat in Kolkata. When asked if she would be allowed to go to Kolkata, a top official told Business Standard: "It's for her to decide where she wants to go. We don't have any problems if she opts to go to Kolkata."

This was not the case last year. The state government wanted to forcibly remove her from the state when some Islamist groups resorted to violence against her writings. Obliging the state, the central government hurriedly took Taslima out of Kolkata and she was virtually under house arrest in New Delhi.

Although Nasreen pleaded with the Centre to allow her to go back to Kolkata, her