Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 12: Dr Gian Singh (Dogri) and late Hiday Koul Bharti (Kashmiri) among 20 writers have been selected for the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award 2020.
Dr Gian Singh has won the award for his Dogri play `Baba Jitmal’ while late Hiday Koul Bharti’s short stories, titled `Tilsmi Khana Badosh’ has received the award.
The Sahitya Akademi announced winners of this award for 2020 during opening day of its annual `Festival of Letters’ event at New Delhi today.
On the occasion, 21 winners of the Bal Sahitya Puraskar and 18 recipients of the Yuva Puraskar for the year 2020 were also announced. These include Ganga Sharma (Dogri) and Muzaffar Ahmad Parray (Kashmiri) for Yuva Puraskar while for Bal Sahitya Puraskar, Shiv Dev Sushil (Dogri) and Syed Akhtar Hussain Mansoor (Kashmiri) are among the recipients.
The awards will be presented at a function, which will be held at a later date. The Sahitya Akademi Award includes a cheque of Rs one lakh while other two awards include Rs 50,000 each.
Noted writer Dr Gian Singh, son of late Mangat Ram, was born on January 24, 1954 at Ghordi Jagir in tehsil Ramnagar of Udhampur district. He did his schooling from Govt HSS Ghordi and MA, Ph D from Jammu University. He retired as Additional Secretary (Editorial), J&K Academy of Art, Culture and Language and remained associated with several literary organizations.
Besides writing several books, including short stories, essays and plays, he has also translated four books. He was co-editor of Dogri-Dogri dictionary, Dogri dictionary, Dogri- Hindi dictionary and English-Dogri dictionary. He got Best Play Script Award 2016 for his Dogri play `Saah-Bsaah’ by J&K Academy of Art Culture and Languages, J&K.
Hiday Koul Bharti, who died August last, has two books to his credit and he was the first person to introduce soap opera to India. His first serial was `Aaap See Maap’. He has written a dozen television plays and more than 50 short stories. He was a resident authority in Kashmiri and Urdu languages. His stories are taught as part of Masters in Kashmiri and Urdu language. His stories are also translated in English and other languages. His writing is somewhat similar to Franz Kafka.
H K Bharti was born at Sopore and after quitting his job as Newscaster at All India Radio in New Delhi, he fully devoted himself to writing. He gave a new concept of modern story writing having a combination of theatric and sort of painting imagery.
The books in 20 Indian languages, selected for the Sahitya Akademi Award 2020, include seven books of poetry, four novels, five short stories, , two plays and one each of memoirs and epic poetry.
Politician writer M Veerappa Moily, poet Arundhathi Subrahmaniam are among 20 writers, who will be bestowed with the Sahitya Akademi Award 2020. While Subramaniam won the award for her poetry collection “When God is a Traveller” in English, Moily was named for his epic poetry titled “Sri Bahubali Ahimsadigvijayam” in Kannada.
The books were selected on the basis of recommendations made by a jury of three members in the concerned languages in accordance with the procedure laid down for the purpose. The Executive Board declared the Awards on the basis of unanimous selections made by the jurors or selection made on the basis of majority vote.
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