NEW DELHI: Tom Alter, a well-known Indian theater, television and Bollywood actor of American descent, has died in Mumbai of cancer. He was 67.
A statement issued by his family on Saturday said Alter died Friday night at home with his family around him in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital. He had been diagnosed with skin cancer last year.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his grief and recalled Alter’s contribution to the film world and theater.
Alter acted in more than 300 films in several Indian languages, including Hindi, Bengali, Assamese and Telugu. His popular movies included Shatranj Ke Khiladi (Chess Players), Gandhi, Parinda (Bird), Kranti (Revolution), Aashiqui (Love) and Junoon (Obsession).
Alter also was a cricket enthusiast and had written for several sporting journals. He won the Indian government’s “Padma Shri Award” in 2008 for his contribution to the fields of arts and cinema.
Alter was the son of American Christian missionaries. His grandparents had migrated to India from Ohio, the United States, in 1916 and settled in Lahore, now in Pakistan. After the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, his grandparents stayed in Pakistan, while his parents moved to India.
He had schooling in the northern Indian hill resort of Mussoorie and later joined the Film and Television Institute in the western city of Pune from 1972 to 1974. He made his Bollywood acting debut in 1976.
He is survived by his wife, one son and one daughter.
Alter’s body was cremated on Saturday in Mumbai, the Press Trust of India news agency quoted his son Jamie Alter as saying. A memorial service will be held next week.
Indian theater actor Tom Alter dies at 67
Indian theater actor Tom Alter dies at 67
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
