9 Kaifi Azmi a well-known Urdu poet said Sept 13 he would renounce his Padma Shn Award to protest the Uttar Pradesh government s policy toward the Urdu language Azmi said [at Lucknow] that he was giving up the award because Urdu had not been granted the status of second official language The poet s announcement came after a local Urdu Action Committee organized a symbolic hunger strike tor the same cause (India Abroad [New York] 27 September 1985) 10 The famous Pakistani artist Sadequain has completed a set of monumental paintings illustrating notable couplets and poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz These are in that highly distinctive style so well-known to us from his earlier treatment of Ghalib s couplets S Amjad All writing in Dawn (Karachi) of 21 June 1985 describes them as a close meeting of minds between the poet and the painter They are both painters and poets of protest railing against the heartlessness the injustices and inequities of society 11 A Translation Center Award of Columbia University for excellence in literary translation was given to Baidar Bakht and Derek M Cohen for translating Urdu poems of Kishwar Naheed The award consisted of $1000 and a certificate Kishwar Naheed is a leading Urdu poet of Pakistan and is known as a fiery feminist Recently an up-to-date complete collection of her poems was published from Lahore entitled FItna'SamanJ-e D(l the English translations are of poems selected from this collection and are soon to be published in book form from Lahore Baidar Bakht a resident of Toronto Canada is a research engineer in the field of Bridge Engineering He has two recent books to his credit one on Bridge Engineering published from New York and the other a collection of English translations of Modern Urdu poems published from Delhi Derek M Cohen is an Associate Professor of English at York University Toronto He is known for his work on Shakespeare ' 12 Farooq Khalid s novel Siy^h HSSiyS ( Black Margins ) has been translated into English and will soon be published in London by Jonathan Cape Further a sequel entitled ApnTDu aoN Ke AsTr ( Prisoners to Our Own Prayers ) will be published by Qausain Lahore this year 13 Ashfaq Hussain who lives in Toronto where he edits and publishes Urdu International (Urdu) has just published a bilingual edition of his selected poems Thai Day Will Dawn (Toronto Pakistan Canada Amity Forum 1985 144 pp $5 00) The translations are by diverse hands The book can be obtained from Pakistan Canada Amity Forum 1296 Bfoor Street West Toronto Canada M6H 1N9 Annual of Urdu Studies #5 150