The Urdu Drama festival aimed to promote the language. Thespians also raised concerns about the challenges they face— particularly the gap between the stage and writers.
More than 50 bookstores lined Urdu Bazaar in the 1970s, but just 5 are left, all struggling to survive. It’s the last throes of an era of Urdu printing, publishing, and poetry.
Pankaj Udhas’ melancholic voice resonated with the grief-filled hearts of many North Indians. With a drink and chakhna in hand, or at a Mughlai food restaurant, his ghazals provided comfort and solace.
According to Akhtar, Urdu poetry has had its own place in all the political movements of India. And even till 1960, very good Urdu poetry would be written and read.
The narrator of the mehfil highlighted how Urdu, disdainfully labelled rekhta or "assorted dialect", clashed with the refined Persian monopolisation of poetry.
Javed Akhtar wove the story of the twin languages’ separation into a romantic, absurdist narrative at a standing-room-only talk at Delhi’s India International Centre.
Today, Urdu literacy is lowest among the Ashraaf and highest among the lower classes who are educated in madrasas. But it’s the Ashraafs who claim to live the ‘Urdu culture’.
Hyderabad-based Maulana Azad National Urdu University, set up in 1998, is trying to counter the perception that it has limited options for students, many of whom are madrasa pass-outs.
Islamabad-based think-tank PICSS's new report says Pakistan saw 'pronounced escalation' in violence last year, with 3,413 conflict-related deaths compared to 1,950 in previous year.
UK, EFTA already in the bag and EU on the way, almost every member of RCEP except China signed up, and even restrictions on China being lifted, India has changed its mind on trade.
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