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.
The first-ever Urdu translation of Samaveda has been done by Iqbal Durrani. The event was held at Red Fort ground Friday and was attended by members of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities.
RBI Handbook of Statistics shows state’s GSDP has more than doubled in past decade, finishing second behind Maharashtra. It has performed well across health & education parameters as well.
It is argued that India-Israel ties are moving from buyer–seller dynamic to one focused on joint development & manufacturing partnership, a shift 'more durable' than traditional arms sales.
Don’t blame misfortune. This is colossal incompetence and insensitivity. So bad, heads would have rolled even in the old PSU-era Indian Airlines and Air India.
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