India's best known artist, M F Husain's painting "Battle of Ganga and Jamuna: Mahabharata 12 " fetched a whopping $1.6 million in an auction held at Christie's Southeast Asia and Contemporary Indian art at New York.

 

This has also set a world record at Christie's beating Tyeb Mehta's earlier record of $1.58mn in 2005 auction. Hussein's work from the Hindu epic was painted in 1972 was sold to an anonymous bidder.

 

While the auction was going on there were wide protests outside the venue with Hindu fundamentalist supporters demonstrating against the artist for his controversial paintings.
--MP