Effigies of writer burned

Demonstrators in the Indian city of Calcutta on Tuesday burnt effigies of the Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasreen, whose new book they allege has insulted Islam.

Ms Nasreen's works have been banned in both her home country and the Indian state of West Bengal, of which Calcutta is the capital.

The author was put under guard at a hotel in the city after Islamic clerics offered a financial reward to anyone who could insult her by blackening her face.

Taslima Nasreen fled Bangladesh in 1994 after receiving death threats following the publication of an earlier book, entitled Shame.

She is now conducting research at Harvard University in the United States into women's rights in Islamic countries.