The 20th annual Aalmi Frogh-e-Urdu Adab Awards will be presented to India’s Javed Akhtar and Pakistan’s Amjad Islam Amjad by Majlis Frogh-e-Urdu Adab, a leading Qatar-based literary forum on October 28.
The event is being organised under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and Sports. “We are proud and very pleased that the Ministry is continuing to extend its support and cooperation to us, which it has been doing for the last many years,’’ Majlis Chairman Mohammad Atiq said.
Launched in 1996, the Aalmi Frogh-e-Urdu Adab Awards (International Award for promotion of Urdu literature), which comprises a gold shield and cash award of Rs.150,000 is given annually to two Urdu writers, one from India and the other from Pakistan, for their life-time achievements in creative fiction, research or critical works.
The 20th Awards were decided by two independent juries, headed by Prof Dr Gopi Chand Narang, former Chairman, Sahitya Academy of India (with Prof Shafey Qidwai, Prof Dr. Abdus Samad and Haqqani Al Qasmi as members) and Dr Khurshid ul Hasan Rizvi noted Urdu scholar, educationist and poet from Pakistan (with Prof Dr Saleem Akhter, Prof Khawaja Mohammad Zakaria and Prof Tehsin Firaqi as members).
Prof Dr Gopi Chand Narang, reputed Urdu critic and research scholar, Prof Dr Pirzada Qasim, well known educationist and poet and Shabana Azmi, leading actress and human rights activist, will be the guests of honour. After the awards presentation ceremony, an international Mushaira will be held, which will feature top poets from Pakistan, India, USA, UK, Germany and UAE. The award winner from India, Javed Akhtar, will preside over the Mushaira.
Majlis will also release a special souvenir on the occasion.
This year’s Mushaira has been designated as “Bayad (meaning, in memory of) Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi’’, whose birth centenary is being celebrated in Pakistan and all over the world this year. Qasmi, who was born in November, 1916 and died in July, 2006, was one of the greatest poets, writers, journalists and scholars of Pakistan. That was why, when Aalmi Awards were launched by the Majlis in 1996, the Pakistan jury, headed by renowned satirist, humor writer and Urdu scholar, Mushtaq Ahmed Khan Yousufi, decided to confer the first Aalmi Award upon Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi from Pakistan.
Guest poets from India for this year’s Mushaira are Javed Akhtar, Hasan Kazmi, Prof Muzaffer Ali Shahmiri, Khursheed Alam and Aleena Itrat Rizvi. The guest poets from Pakistan are Pirzada Qasim, Amjad Islam Amjad, Shoaib bin Aziz, Ayoub Khawar, Qaiser Wajdi and Khalid Masood Khan.
