Midnight's Children prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary. In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novels". It was also added to the list of Great Books of the 20th Century, published by Penguin Books. "Midnight's Children" is a loose allegory for events in India both before and, primarily, after the independence and partition of India. The protagonist and narrator of the story is Saleem Sinai, born at the exact moment when India became an independent country. He was born with telepathic powers, as
Salman Rushdie suspending the redoubtable Gita Sahgal for the crime of going public with her concerns. Gita Sahgal is a woman of immense integrity and distinction... It is people like Gita Sahgal who are the true voices of the human rights movement; Amnesty and Begg have revealed, by their statements and actions, that they deserve our contempt. Rushdie supported the election of Democrat Barack Obama for the American presidency and has often criticized the Republican Party. In Indian politics, Rushdie has criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party and its Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rushdie was involved in the Occupy Movement, both as a