Jairam Ramesh has written to Heehs privately

Journalist, Writer. Politics, economics, finance, religion. Executive Editor (Business), Hindustan Times; Director, Financial Planning Standards Board India. New Delhi, India · http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/just-faith Tweets Gautam Chikermane ‏ @gchikermane

It's the best book on him will try to get hold of it. Sounds interesting - hv always found Aurobindo fascinating

And advice of one MP, I hear. banned on the advice of Orissa DG Intelligence - he hasn't read the book

What a shame it will be for a country which used be a liberal patron of ideas & ideologies

it's possible.. this is where internet comes in where one can't truly ban anything

No, Columbia University Press

Is it published by the Ashram?

Seem to have multiplied in past three years

List of scandals in India http://zite.to/H4yawd

After Salman Rushdie and MF Husain, the fundamentalists have turned their guns on Peter Heehs, an ashramite serving in India for 41 years.

Is India going to end up being the place from where all free speech, intellectuals, ideas will be banished?

The book has been banned on the advice of Orissa DG Intelligence - he hasn't read the book.

The book, The Many Lives of Sri Aurobindo, is the best biography of the freedom fighter turned spiritual leader. Most haven't read the book.

After Salman Rushdie and MF Husain, the fundamentalists have turned their guns on Peter Heehs, an ashramite serving in India for 41 years.

Gautam Chikermane ‏ @gchikermane

Historian Peter Heehs's visa is not being extended because some fundamentalists think his book on Sri Aurobindo is blasphemous.

Don't expel US historian: my story on how the govt is exiling another thinker http://bit.ly/HC9XYy 

Hindustan Times: Don’t expel US historian, govt told from auroleaks by auroleaks

IYF has this interesting addendum to Gautam Chikermane’s article in the Hindustan Times, which is presently spreading through the blogosphere: 

The question about the relationship between Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is only one of dozens of objections raised by that handful of religious fundamentalists; it is not even mentioned in the Orissa Gazette Notification. It is, however, what appears to produce the most visceral effect in the public, for reasons we fail to understand. Heehs made it perfectly clear that there was no sexual element at all in this relationship. On the contrary, what he wrote underscores its profoundly sacred nature. Only readers with a serious Freudian hang-up can fail to see this. Moreover, we are aware that Minister Jairam Ramesh has read and greatly appreciated The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. He has written Heehs privately about this and also mentioned it in his letter to the Home Minister. We regret that the writer of this otherwise excellent report did not quote from JR’s letter the positive comments about the book, along with the lines relating to the larger issue of freedom of expression. — Editors, IYF.