Azad Hind editor gets Rajya Sabha berth

Ahmad Saeed Malihabadi, the editor of Urdu daily Azad Hind (Calcutta) is all set to get elected to the Upper House. The Left Front and the Congress, both bitter rivals in West Bengal politics, have supported his nomination.

He had filed his nomination as an independent candidate. It is quite clear that he will easily sail through. Congress leader PR Das Munshi said that Malihabadi is a scholar, a secular person and his family played its role in the freedom movement that makes him a candidate Congress can back.

UPDATE:
Malihabadi has been elected to the Upper House. One does hope that in the Rajya Sabha, he would raise the issues of poor, the downtrodden and of course the issues concerning minorities. Unfortunately Azad Hind, an old and respected newspaper, is yet to have a website of its own.

Obituary: Prakash Fikri’s demise

Only last year at Urdu India, we had featured a ghazal of Prakash Fikri. The renowned Urdu poet passed away sometime back (the news has come late). He was 77. Zahirul Haq alias Prakash Fikri was born in Ambala in 1931.

His father Maulvi Mohammad Zakaria was an Arabic teacher. By 60s, Fikri was well-known as a modernist voice in Urdu poetry. His poetry collections Safar Sitara & Ek Zara Si Barish were critically acclaimed. In Patna and Ranchi, where he lived, there were condolence meetings organised in his memory.

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