Weaker yen helps keep Sony on course for profit target

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp stuck with its full-year profit forecast as a weaker yen and asset sales underpinned earnings, offsetting weaker demand for its televisions, game consoles and other devices.

Sony, which is doubling down on consumer electronics in a bid to revive the company, joined domestic rivals Sharp and Panasonic in reporting a quarterly operating profit, although analysts are skeptical the industry can regain its former status.

The maker of PlayStation games and Bravia TVs held its full-year operating profit forecast of 130 billion yen ($1.4 billion), compared with a consensus estimate of 119 billion yen of 19 analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Sony made a 67 billion yen operating loss in 2011/12.

"If this weak yen rate persists it should provide us with a big upside," said Chief Financial Officer Masaru Kato.

In the three months to December 31, Sony posted 46.4 billion yen in operating profit compared with a 91.7 billion yen loss a year ago. The result came in below the average 72.1 billion yen profit estimated by six analysts.

Japanese firms, once key innovators in consumer electronics, have been overtaken by rivals such as Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc , and have lost out as consumers flock to smartphones and tablets.

Sony under its latest CEO, Kazuo Hirai, is focusing on mobile phones and tablets, cameras and gaming in a bid to return the company to profit. It is also expanding its medical devices through an investment in endoscope maker Olympus Corp .

Sony cut its November forecast for full-year sales of TV sets from 14.5 million to 13.5 million, but kept its prediction for an 11 percent decline in sales of its PlayStation games console to 16 million.

The company also pared its estimate for sales of compact cameras for the year to 15 million from an earlier estimate of 16 million. It was down from 21 million a year earlier.

It cut its estimate for PSP and PS Vita handheld devices to 7 million from a November estimate of 10 million.

ASSET SALES

Sony for now is boosting earnings through asset sales it books as operating profit. A rapid fall in the value of the yen against the dollar, and other currencies is also helping the company, which sells most of its products outside Japan. The yen weakened 11 percent against the U.S. dollar during the final three months of the year, and by 14 percent against the euro.

Hirai said in January that any assets not adding to core business, helping grow new businesses or aiding the turnaround of the TV unit could be sold.

Sony, which is also axing 10,000 jobs this business year, last month agreed to sell its U.S. headquarters building in New York City for $1.1 billion. It has also put one of its main buildings in central Tokyo up for sale in a deal that could raise a further $1.1 billion, sources have told Reuters.

The tech giant last year sold its chemical unit to a state-sponsored bank in Japan for $700 million, and is also mulling the sale of its battery business.

With its credit rating eroding, including a downgrade along with Panasonic, to below investment grade by Fitch last year, Sony faces higher borrowing costs.

Since the start of the year Sony's shares have gained nearly 60 percent, rebounding from 30-year lows, compared with a 9 percent rise in the benchmark Nikkei 225 <.n225>. Its share rose 2.6 percent on Thursday to close at 1,519 yen before it released its results for the quarter. ($1 = 93.5450 Japanese yen)

(Editing by Richard Pullin)

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Ipswich Journal: Paul Mason Is One-Third the Man He Used to Be

Paul Nixon Photography

Paul Mason in 2012, two years after gastric bypass surgery stripped him of the unofficial title of “the world’s fattest man.”

IPSWICH, England — Who knows what the worst moment was for Paul Mason — there were so many awful milestones, as he grew fatter and fatter — but a good bet might be when he became too vast to leave his room. To get him to the hospital for a hernia operation, the local fire department had to knock down a wall and extricate him with a forklift.

That was nearly a decade ago, when Mr. Mason weighed about 980 pounds, and the spectacle made him the object of fascinated horror, a freak-show exhibit. The British news media, which likes a superlative, appointed him “the world’s fattest man.”

Now the narrative has shifted to one of redemption and second chances. Since a gastric bypass operation in 2010, Mr. Mason, 52 years old and 6-foot-4, has lost nearly two-thirds of his body weight, putting him at about 336 pounds — still obese, but within the realm of plausibility. He is talking about starting a jewelry business.

“My meals are a lot different now than they used to be,” Mr. Mason said during a recent interview in his one-story apartment in a cheerful public housing complex here. For one thing, he no longer eats around the clock. “Food is a necessity, but now I don’t let it control my life anymore,” he said.

But the road to a new life is uphill and paved with sharp objects. When he answered the door, Mr. Mason did not walk; he glided in an electric wheelchair.

And though Mr. Mason looks perfectly normal from the chest up, horrible vestiges of his past stick to him, literally, in the form of a huge mass of loose skin choking him like a straitjacket. Folds and folds of it encircle his torso and sit on his lap, like an unwanted package someone has set there; more folds encase his legs. All told, he reckons, the excess weighs more than 100 pounds.

As he waits to see if anyone will agree to perform the complex operation to remove the skin, Mr. Mason has plenty of time to ponder how he got to where he is. He was born in Ipswich and had a childhood marked by two things, he says: the verbal and physical abuse of his father, a military policeman turned security guard; and three years of sexual abuse, starting when he was 6, by a relative in her 20s who lived in the house and shared his bed. He told no one until decades later.

After he left school, Mr. Mason took a job as a postal worker and became engaged to a woman more than 20 years older than him. “I thought it would be for life, but she just turned around one day and said, ‘No, I don’t want to see you anymore — goodbye,’ ” he said.

His father died, and he returned home to care for his arthritic mother, who was in a wheelchair. “I still had all these things going around in my head from my childhood,” he said. “Food replaced the love I didn’t get from my parents.” When he left the Royal Mail in 1986, he said, he weighed 364 pounds.

Then things spun out of control. Mr. Mason tried to eat himself into oblivion. He spent every available penny of his and his mother’s social security checks on food. He stopped paying the mortgage. The bank repossessed their house, and the council found them a smaller place to live. All the while, he ate the way a locust eats — indiscriminately, voraciously, ingesting perhaps 20,000 calories a day. First he could no longer manage the stairs; then he could no longer get out of his room. He stayed in bed, on and off, for most of the last decade.

Social service workers did everything for him, including changing his incontinence pads. A network of local convenience stores and fast-food restaurants kept the food coming nonstop — burgers, french fries, fish and chips, even about $22 worth of chocolate bars a day.

“They didn’t deliver bags of crisps,” he said of potato chips. “They delivered cartons.”

His life became a cycle: eat, doze, eat, eat, eat. “You didn’t sleep a normal sleep,” he said. “You’d be awake most of the night eating and snacking. You totally forgot about everything else. You lose all your dignity, all your self-respect. It all goes, and all you focus on is getting your next fix.”

He added, “It was quite a lonely time, really.”

He got infections a lot and was transported to the hospital — first in a laundry van, then on the back of a truck and finally on the forklift. For 18 months after a hernia operation in 2003, he lived in the hospital and in an old people’s home — where he was not allowed to leave his room — while the local government found him a house that could accommodate all the special equipment he needed.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 6, 2013

The headline on an earlier version of this article misstated Paul Mason’s current weight relative to what he weighed nearly a decade ago. He is now about one-third, not two-thirds, the weight he was then.

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Snoop Dogg Gets the Party Started with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lawrence

Caught in the Act

02/06/2013 at 06:00 AM EST

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lawrence, inset: Snoop Lion (Dogg)

Valerie Goodloe/PictureGroup; Frederick M. Brown/Getty

Guess the "O" in "O.G." stands for Oscar.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lawrence both attended the Hollywood Reporter's Nominees' Night 2013 at Spago in Beverly Hills on Monday.

It was a low-key affair at first, with Affleck holding court in a central area of the soiree, where he was animated while chatting with people and seemed excited and genuinely happy.

The Argo star and director, looking handsome in a suit, also obliged guests who approached him for photos.

Lawrence was spotted embracing her Silver Linings Playbook costar Julia Stiles. "You're so stunning!" Stiles told Lawrence just before taking a snapshot together.

As the evening continued, it was clear that Lawrence was the darling of event. Fellow guests were going up and telling her she is beautiful and they're so proud of her and Lawrence was ever the gracious guest, chatting with anyone who approached her.

But it wasn't until Snoop Lion (Dogg) arrived, who went by the deejay name Snoopadelic, that the party really went into full gear. After a lengthy intro that included a clip-filled video, Snoop emerged, gave an intro of his own – he praised Argo and shouted for Affleck to come take a photo with him before the night's end – and began playing an eclectic mix of songs, which included everything from Pat Benatar to 2 Chainz.

– Dahvi Shira

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.

With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.

"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.

City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.

"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.

Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.

"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.

Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.

While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.

Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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Stock index futures point to slightly higher Wall Street open

LONDON (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Wall Street on Wednesday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.1 percent at 5.06 a.m EST.

* Dow Jones futures added 0.3 percent while contracts on the Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.2 percent.

* Visa , the world's largest credit and debit card network, is expected to report earnings per share of $1.79 for its first quarter, up 1.49 from a year earlier. Smaller rival MasterCard recently reported better-than-expected results but said its revenue growth could decelerate in the first half of the year due to economic uncertainty.

* Media groups Time Warner Inc. and News Corp. were also among U.S. companies due to report results.

* Liberty Global won't change Virgin Media's strategy on network roll-out and content if its deal to buy the British cable group goes through, Liberty's chief executive said on Wednesday.

* Walt Disney Co beat estimates in quarterly adjusted earnings and said it expects the next few quarters to be better on a stronger lineup of movies and rising attendance at its theme parks. The results helped lift the media giant's shares 1.7 percent in after-hours trading.

* Take-Two Interactive Software Inc reported higher revenue and earnings in the third quarter that blew past Wall Street expectations, as the video games publisher gears up to launch a new title from its mega-blockbuster "Grand Theft Auto" series. Take-Two shares were up about 7 percent in after-hours trading after closing at $12.66 on the Nasdaq.

* Online gaming firm Zynga Inc reported an unexpected fourth-quarter profit after embracing steep cost cuts and shifting forward deferred revenue. The results were a relief to investors who had feared the company might be in free fall and Zynga's shares jumped 7 percent to $2.93 in after-hours trade.

* Nasdaq OMX Group Inc is in preliminary talks with U.S. securities regulators over a possible settlement for the glitch-ridden stock market debut of social networking site Facebook Inc , the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the discussions.

* Online photo-sharing service provider Shutterfly Inc's results beat analysts' estimates in the traditionally strong fourth quarter on higher demand during the holiday season, particularly in its enterprise unit. The company's shares rose 13 percent in after-hours trading.

* European stocks were a touch higher on Wednesday, with shares in the world's largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal , rising after its upbeat outlook reassured investors.

* Japan's Nikkei average surged 3.8 percent to its highest close since October 2008 after the yen fell sharply on bets the early exit of the central bank governor would open the way for a successor who pursues aggressive monetary easing.

* The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> closed 99.22 points, or 0.71 percent, higher at 13,979.30 on Tuesday. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 15.58 points, or 1.04 percent, at 1,511.29. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 40.41 points, or 1.29 percent, at 3,171.58.

(Reporting By Francesco Canepa; Editing by Susan Fenton)

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India Ink: The Mumbai/New York Photo Project: Meet the 'Wallas'

While much has changed in New York and Mumbai over the past 50 years, the bazaar, or the marketplace, is still the center of commercial activity for both these cities.

In both these cities, the commercial capitals of their respective nations, you can get almost anything you want, at any time, day or night – as long as you know the right person to procure it, or “walla” in India. And in both cities, sometimes these wallas drive a hard bargain. In this edition of the Mumbai/New York photo project, Nisha Sondhe documents some of these marketplaces where products and services range from the brilliant to the bizarre.

In Mumbai, the wholesale flower market in Dadar, where one can buy flowers brought in from all over Maharashtra and Gujarat, opens each morning at 4:30 and closes at 8 p.m. The market, under the overpass next to Dadar station, is a window into India’s thriving flower trade. The Chelsea flower district, a century-old institution in Manhattan, is hub for unusual flowers, exotic plants, vases and garden accessories. This market opens at 5 a.m. and is also best visited early in the day, when the produce is the freshest.

Crawford Market, established in 1869 by the first municipal commissioner of Mumbai, Arthur Crawford, is still the best place for wholesale bargains in the city.

The market, which is now called the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Market, was in danger of being demolished a few years ago but was saved thanks to the efforts of conservationists. While the market is traditionally meant for wholesale fruit and vegetable trading, these days many stores are stocked with foreign goods like Camay soap, Kraft cheese, Fa deodorant or a pack of Pampers diapers.

Change is also under way at New York’s Chelsea Market, which specializes in gourmet food and is housed in a collection of industrial buildings that once was home to the National Biscuit Company, or Nabisco. In November, the owner of Chelsea Market, Jamestown Properties, an acquisition and management firm based in Cologne, Germany, and Atlanta, ignited public outrage when the city approved plans to add office towers to the landmark structure. Construction on the towers is scheduled to begin in 2015.

The market, which attracts approximately 120,000 visitors a week, sells products ranging from fine foods and baked goods, to books, flowers and kitchen accessories.

Dhobi Ghat, a famous open-air laundry where dhobis (washerfolk) wash and dry clothes in full view of the public, is a source of much fascination for visitors to Mumbai. Rows upon rows of concrete wash pens come together to make the world’s largest outdoor laundry.

Meanwhile, laundromats in New York, while not as visually interesting, have their own inherent drama. They are places where “irregular things happen,” according to a New York Times article, and where people “flirt, debate, gossip, argue, break up, discover love, loiter, do business and just about anything else that can be squeezed into 27-minute heavy-soil cycles.” In the older apartment buildings in New York City, personal washing equipment was often prohibited, and the city now has 2,654 self-service laundries to fulfill that need.

The act of washing clothes has inspired art as well. In 2011, a dhobi is one of the main characters in “Dhobi Ghat: Mumbai Diaries,” a 2011 movie directed by Kiran Rao, and a 1985 cable TV movie directed by Robert Altman, “Laundromat,” explored the drama that ensues when two women air out their dirty laundry.

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Eva Longoria Reveals Valentine's Day (and Upcoming Birthday!) Plans

Caught in the Act

02/05/2013 at 06:00 AM EST

Eva Longoria

Denise Truscello/WireImage

Eva Longoria already knows what she'll be doing on Valentine's Day.

The actress visited the new restaurant and nightclub, She by Morton's, in Las Vegas – in which she is a part owner – on Saturday night, and revealed what's on her agenda for the heartfelt holiday.

"Eva said she would be spending Valentine's Day with her girlfriends – like she always does," a source tells PEOPLE. But that's not the only thing on her agenda. The former Desperate Housewives star also said she's also made plans for her March birthday.

"She's taking a charity trip to South America, which she is really excited about," the source says. "She joked that you shouldn't celebrate birthdays after a certain age because we don't want to remind people how old we are!"

– Patrick Gomez

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

___

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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U.S. stock index futures signal higher Wall Street open

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100 rising 0.2 to 0.3 percent.

U.S. stocks slid on Monday, giving the S&P 500 its worst day since November, as renewed worries about the euro zone crisis caused the market to pull back from recent gains. Europe's main markets were marginally in the black after the latest batch of corporate results on Tuesday.

NYSE Euronext , the exchange being bought by rival IntercontinentalExchange , said slower trading drove fourth-quarter net revenue down 11 percent to $562 million.

ICSC/Goldman Sachs release chain store sales for the week ended February 2 at 7.45 a.m EST. Sales fell 1.0 percent in the previous week.

The U.S. government has launched a civil lawsuit against Standard & Poor's and parent The McGraw-Hill Companies over mortgage bond ratings, the first federal enforcement action against a credit rating agency over alleged illegal behavior tied to the recent financial crisis.

Redbook releases its Retail Sales Index of department and chain store sales for January at 1355 GMT. Sales fell 0.5 percent in the previous month.

Major companies announcing results on Tuesday included Walt Disney Company , Automatic Data Processing and Delphi Automotive .

The Institute for Supply Management releases its January non-manufacturing index at 1500 GMT. Economists forecast a reading of 55.2, versus 55.7 in December.

John Malone's cable group Liberty Global has approached Britain's No. 2 pay-TV operator Virgin Media about making a bid for the firm, the UK group said on Tuesday.

Technology services provider IBM on Tuesday said it is aiming to take on competitors such as Oracle and Hewlett Packard by offering a more affordable Power Systems server and storage product range later this month.

Japan's transport safety agency said it is still unclear whether battery chemistry or an electrical issue caused a main battery on a Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner operated by All Nippon Airways to overheat last month, forcing it to make an emergency landing.

European shares <.fteu3> rose 0.5 percent on Tuesday, stabilizing after the previous session's sharp sell-off, as investors digested a raft of earnings reports.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 129.71 points, or 0.93 percent, at 13,880.08 on Monday. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 17.46 points, or 1.15 percent, at 1,495.71. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 47.93 points, or 1.51 percent, at 3,131.17.

(Reporting by Atul Prakash)

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India Ink: Five Questions For: Author Jamil Ahmad

Jamil Ahmad is the author of “The Wandering Falcon,” a novel that delves into the lives of the tribal population living in the border region of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. This is the debut novel of the former Pakistani bureaucrat, now in his 80s. He has spent more than 20 years in the Balochistan and Frontier provinces in Pakistan during his service.

The novel was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2011 and was also a finalist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature this year.

India Ink interviewed Mr. Ahmad during the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Why does the Jaipur Literature Festival matter to you?

When I got the invite, there was a feeling that I should make it. My family was very involved, and they felt that I should be here.

What are the occupational hazards of being a writer?

I don’t think there are any.

What is your writing ritual?

I had time on my hands. I wrote in longhand, and my wife typed it with a manual typewriter, which was a German make.

The manuscript took 40 years to publish. I started writing in 1971, finished in ’73.

The Atlantic wanted to publish a short story. One British publisher said, “Change it to nonfiction.” Another British publisher said, “Change it to the modern idiom.” Tribes don’t speak English! The tribes had their own language. Their entire language has changed now.

Then I lost track. It was sheer luck that Penguin India published my work.

How do you deal with critics?

I am not disturbed by them. I reread them. Good reviews sometimes puff you up. Some reviews in India have been far too complimentary. It is ironic that of the negative reviews, the majority came from Pakistan.

Why should we read “The Wandering Falcon”?

People should buy it if they find the cover attractive when they see it in a bookstore. It is a short book, about 200 pages. It is an easy read.

I want people to understand that tribes are not savage. Left to themselves, the tribes will adjust to changes in the periphery. There should not be attempts to socially engineer them.

(The interview has been lightly edited and condensed.)

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