KARACHI: The 14th edition of the International Conference in Urdu organized by the Arts Council of Pakistan will start on December 9 and end on December 12, Council Chairman Ahmed Shah said on Friday.

Mr Shah told a reporter that this year, unfortunately, many academics have left this world, such as Shamsur Rehman Farooqui and Professor Shamim Hanfi. Despite this, the organizers tried to include as many renowned names from Urdu literature as speakers at the event.

“As we also begin the celebrations for the country’s 75th Independence Day, the theme for this year is the celebration of independence and cultural diversity. This is the reason why, over the past three years, we have also discussed other Pakistani languages ​​- Sindhi, Punjabi, Baluchi, Saraeki and Pashto – which have received very good feedback.

After saying that, he introduced the media to the sponsors of the year’s edition. Returning to the content of the program, Mr. Shah said that the conference has grown in importance over the years, so much so that Urdu writers all over the world are eagerly awaiting it.

“The conference will start on December 9th. Its inaugural session will take place at 3:30 p.m. The Chief Minister of Sindh will be the main guest of the opening session. Then will come Shaam-i-Faiz, in which will participate the daughter of the poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Moniza Hashmi, her grandson Adeel Hashmi and the poet Iftikhar Arif. Traditional subjects are there too. This time around, however, we’ve kept a separate roundtable on the novel, as well as on the art of the short story (afasana), criticism, ghazal, and nazm.

“Then, each time, a big question that is asked concerns our Indian participants. The Indian border is closed and the visa facility is not available. But the good thing that came out of it was that before a few people across the border were attending the event, now since thanks to digital media we can be seen all over the world it there are more guest speakers from India. For example, Gopichand Narang will honor the inaugural session. Gulzar, Javed Siddiqui and Anees Ashfaq will also be in the game.

Posted in Dawn, le 4 December 2021