‘Raju’ & Ashu get Sahitya Akademi Awards for short stories in Dogri

Rajeshwar ‘Raju’ Dr Ashu Sharma
Rajeshwar ‘Raju’ Dr Ashu Sharma

Hamidullah, Shaista Khan selected for works in Kashmiri

Nishikant Khajuria

JAMMU, Aug 24: Rajeshwar Singh ‘Raju’ and Dr Ashu Sharma from Jammu have been selected for this year’s Sahitya Akademi awards in the category of Bal Sahitya Puraskar and Yuva Puraskar, respectively for their short stories in Dogri language.
Similarly, Qamer Hamidullah and Shaista Khan have been selected for Sahitya Akademi Bal Sahitya Puraskar and Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar, respectively for their works in Kashmiri language.
Rajeshwar Singh ‘Raju’ has been selected for the Akademi Bal Sahitya Puraskar for his short stories book in Dogri, ‘Sikh-Mat; while Dr Ashu Sharma has been selected for the Akademi Yuva Puraskar for her short stories book in Dogri language, titled `Kathaputli’.
The Akademi Bal Sahitya Puraskar has been given to Qamer Hamidullah for his collection of poem in Kashmiri, titled ‘Daiel’ while Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar has been given to Shaista Khan for short stories `Brande Baras Peth’ in Kashmiri language.
Each award, in the form of a casket containing an engraved copper-plaque and a cheque of Rs 50,000, will be presented to the awardees at a special function to be held later. Executive Board of the Sahitya Akademi made the selections today on the basis of recommendations by the three-member jury in respective languages.
The Executive Board, which met today under the chairmanship of President Dr Chandrashekhar Kambar, approved selection of 22 writers in different languages for the Sahitya Akademi Bal Puraskar 2022 and 23 writers for the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2022.
Rajeshwar Singh ‘Raju’ has been writing in Hindi, Dogri and English languages for the last 30 years. About 1000 articles , 100 short stories and 500 poems written by him have been published in different leading newspapers and magazines. He has also written 15 theatre plays which have been staged by prominent theatre groups.
About 35 plays and five serials written by him have been broadcast from Aakashwani Jammu and about 20 plays , 10 serials and more than 100 documentaries telecast from DDK Jammu, DDK Srinagar and DD Kashir. He has 16 books to his credit that include six in his mother tongue Dogri and eight are in Hindi and two in English. Out of these 15 books, four are on poetry and other seven are on short stories and four are on Art and Culture.
Dr Ashu Sharma is one among the new generation writers of Dogri, who has established herself as successful writer in Jammu region. She started writing in 2010 and during the period of about a decade, she has come up with nine publications in the field of literary criticism, poetry and translation work from other languages to Dogri. Her book `Kathaputli’ contains 12 short stories, which reflect the Dogra culture.