11. According to a recent report in Dawn (Karachi), the work on Urdu Encyclopaedia of Islam is almost complete and the 23rd and last volume is expected to be published within the next two years.
Work on the UEI was started in 1951, under the supervision of a committee of eminent scholars headed by Maulvi Muhammad Shafi. But the work gained greater momentum when Dr. Syed Abdullah became the Director of the project in the Sixties. The UEI is mainly based on the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam published from Leiden, but additional information as well as new articles have been added, with particular attention to Islam in South Asia. According to Dr. Syed Abdullah, "care was taken that prejudiced opinions should be discarded, articles on Islamic thought and distinguished personalities of Islamic history be either revised or rewritten and articles not present in the EI be added."
The Urdu title of the book is Urd^i Da°ira-e Ma'arif-e Islamiyya.
12. Kaifi Azmi, the well-known Progressive poet, was awarded the Lotus Prize for 1983. It is an international award given annually by the Afro-Asian Writers' Association.
13. The Academy of Letters, Pakistan, recently announced the names of the recipients of its awards for the year 1401 A.H. (1980-81). The Allama Iqbal Award for poetry in Urdu was given to Mohsin Ehsan for his collection, Na-Tamam. The Maulvi Abdul Haq Award for prose went to the late Khadija Mastur for her collection of short stories, THanda MTtHa PanT. The cash value of each award was Rs. 40,000.
14. The 1983 Nuqush Awards were given to the following: Dr. Syed Abdullah (Research) ; Dr. Ghulam Mustafa Khan (5'Irat) 7 Faiz Ahmad Faiz (Poetry); Abulfazi Siddiqui (Fiction); and Sadeeq Salik (Satire & Humour).
These awards were set up recently by Gen. Ziaul Haq of Pakistan.
15. The Ghalib Institute, New Delhi, gave its Ghalib Awards for 1982 to the following: Khaliq Ahmad (Research); the late Saghar Nizami (Poetry); Qurratulain Hyder (Fiction); Revti Saran Sharma (Drama).
16. Kishwar Naheed's translation of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (Urdu title 'Aural) was banned by the Government of the Punjab, Pakistan, and all printed copies were confiscated in September 1983.
It may be noted that Khalil Gibran's The prophet, V. S. Naipaul's Among the Believers, Arthur Lal'S Emergence of Modern India, and Asghar Khan's Generals in Politics met similar fate in 1983.
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