Ghalib Award to Balraj Komal, Izhar Asar & other Urdu writers

The Ghalib Awards were recently given away to Urdu litterateurs at a glittering ceremony in Delhi.

Veteran Urdu novelist, poet and writer Izhar Asar got the award for Science Writing. Izhar Asar, whose mystery novels in the decades of 50s and 60s were quite a rage, especially the Nagin series, has done a great job towards demystifying the principles of science and written it in a language so that common man can understand it. Special issues of his own Izhar Asar Digest on science are considered as milestones in Urdu.

Eminent poet Balraj Komal was selected for Urdu poetry. He is a terrific poet of Nazm and his verses like Akeli are a gems of Urdu literature.

Aleem Saba Navedi got the award for overall contribution to literature. He has truly dedicated himself to Urdu language and especially in a state like Tamil Nadu where Urdu is not spoken as commonly (except in Arcot).

Hamdi Kashmiri (Urdu prose), Kabir Ahmad Jaisi (Persian literature and research), Dr Aslam Pervez (Research), Shahid Anwar (Drama) got the rest of the awards. UrduIndia congratules all of them.