Sahitya Akademi awardee and former PCS officer, Mohd Idrees Amber Bahraichi (71), died of Covid-19 complicat ..
He was the husband of All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board (AIMWPLB) president Shaista Amber.
Both Mohd Idrees Amber and Shaista Amber had tested negative for Covid-19 in their RT-PCR report which came out on April .
“Both my parents gave their samples on April 25 and tested negative. They were both at home. When my mother’s oxygen saturation level started dipping, I got a CT scan done for my parents which confirmed both of them had coronavirus infection,” said their daughter Aaisha Sumbul.
“My mother is currently on oxygen support at home and is not very stable and needs prayers,” she said
“My father was fine and all his other vitals were getting better too. Suddenly, he had a heart attack and a stroke and left us on Friday,” Aaisha said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News / by TNN / May 09th, 2021
Dean of Faculty of Law at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Prof Shakil Ahmed Samdani, died on Saturday at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital where he was undergoing treatment for coronavirus, an official said.
AMU spokesperson Rahat Abrar said 59-year-old Samdani was admitted to the hospital in the varsity 10 days ago after he tested positive for COVID-19.
He initially seemed to have recovered but his condition suddenly deteriorated a few days back, the official said.
The teaching staff at the AMU has lost 17 members during the past 18 days. All of them were either suffering from COVID-19 or displaying COVID-19 like symptoms, the spokesperson said.
Professor Rafiqul Zaman Khan (55), till recently the chairman of the Department Computer Science, passed away on Friday at the medical college hospital due to COVID-19.
Two days ago, former dean of the Law Department, Prof Mohamed Shabbir Ahmad (70), died of COVID-like symptoms.
He was the founder-head of the Ambedkar Chair in the Department of Law and had also served as the acting vice-chancellor of AMU, the spokesperson said.(PTI)
source: http://www.firstindia.co.in / First India / Home> India / by First India / May 08th, 2021
Former Supreme Court Judge Justice MY Eqbal passed away today morning at New Delhi.
He was a judge of the Supreme Court from 24 December 2012 – 12 February 2016.
Before that, he was the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court.
Chief Justice of India (CJI) N V Ramana has condoled the passing away of former Supreme Court judge M Y Eqbal before commencing the day’s judicial proceedings.
Justice N V Ramana, Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India expressed deep sorrow at the passing away of former Judge of Supreme Court Justice M.Y. Eqbal. Recalling his association with Justice Eqbal, Justice Ramana described Justice Eqbal as a conscientious professional who stood for humane values. He offered condolences to the bereaved family. When the Bench assembled in Court No. 1 this morning, Hon’ble the Chief Justice made a reference in this regard and offered condolences on behalf of the Supreme Court of India. Justice Eqbal passed away at a private hospital in Gurugram
Justice Eqbal was born on 13 February, 1951, passed B.Sc. from Ranchi University in 1970 and obtained LL.B. Degree in 1974 with distinction winning Gold Medal.
He started his career in Ranchi as an advocate in 1975 practising exclusively in civil side. He was appointed as a Government Pleader in the Ranchi Bench of Patna High Court in 1990. Later, he was appointed as a permanent Judge of the Patna High Court on 9 May, 1996 and then became the Judge of the Jharkhand High Court on 14 November, 2000.
Justice Eqbal, who was also associated with the Jharkhand Legal Services Authority, is the first Judge from Jharkhand to be elevated as a Chief Justice of any High Court in the country.
source: http://www.livelaw.in / Live Law / Home> Top Stories / Live Law News Network / May 07th, 2021
Prof Yusuf was the first Muslim in India to earn a doctorate on Rigveda, as per the statement.
Aligarh Muslim University (File Photo | PTI)
Aligarh :
Noted Sanskrit scholar at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) Prof Khalid Bin Yusuf has passed away after a brief illness, a university statement said here on Thursday.
Prof Yusuf (60) was showing COVID-19 symptoms and had acute pneumonia, his family members said.
He passed away on Wednesday night while being treated at a hospital, they added.
Prof Yusuf was the first Muslim in India to earn a doctorate on Rigveda, as per the statement.
AMU Vice Chancellor Prof Tariq Mansoor paid rich tributes to the departed scholar.
During the past fortnight, 13 serving members from the teaching faculty at AMU who were either suffering from COVID-19 or showing symptoms of the infection have lost their lives.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Nation / by PTI / May 06th, 2021
Well known social activist Dr Fakhruddin Mohammed has passed away this noon (May 5) following the second attack of coronavirus at a leading hospital in Hyderabad. He was 61.
According to family sources Dr Fakhruddin had returned home from the hospital after recovering from the first attack of COVID-19. But within a couple of days the attack recurred and he was rushed to the same hospital where could not survive.
Dr Fakhruddin was the Chairman of Muslim Educational, Social and Cultural Organisation that is popularly known as MESCO that was established in 1975 with the motto of serving the backward Muslim community through various ways.
Today MESCO is a major name in the field with a network of schools and colleges to its credit where thousands of students are enrolled.
Because of his active participation in matters related to education and social work, he was known across the country. He was also a consultant for setting up medical colleges. At one time he served as a member of Aligarh Muslim University Senate.
By setting up MESCO Diagnostic Centre in the Old City of Hyderabad with the patronage of senior medical practitioners, associates and other community leaders he was able to establish a chain of educational institutions.
He is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.
He was laid to rest after Isha (night) prayers.
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> News>Hyderabad News / by Usama Hazari / May 06th, 2021
Simply Rizwan to most of his friends and colleagues, a leading voice among the historians of Modern India, succumbing to the virus, academic life will no longer be the same
With the untimely death of Prof. Rizwan Qaiser, Rizwan for most of his friends and colleagues, a leading voice among the historians of Modern India, the academic life of the country and more so of the capital will no longer be the same.
While Jamia Milia Islamia, where he has been a key member of the Department of History and Culture and also an extremely energetic member of its Teachers’ Union , loses one of academic leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru University, under siege for some time anyway, loses one of its most loved alumni who represented the University in more than one sense: someone who thought scientifically about social issues, believed that a humane world could be built with the ideals of compassion, equity and a sense of justice, the virtues tried to be enshrined in our collective consciousness during the national movement for freedom, and someone ready to speak up against the divisive social and political forces.
Born and educated in Munghyr, Bihar, Rizwan came to Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1980. It was in the Centre for Historical Studies where he had his training in Modern Indian history, with Prof. Bipan Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee, K.N. Panikkar, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, and many others who had made the Centre the location of a robust historiography on Modern Indian history.
Coming a couple of years after the Emergency and having experienced the student movements in Bihar as a young boy, Rizwan took to the new kind of history in no time but also took to the political life of the campus at this time. Though he later moved to the School of International Studies where he worked for his Doctoral thesis with the renowned Prof. Bimala Prasad and Prof. Uma Singh, he remained a steadfast historian of the Centre for Historical Studies mould, as for him the historian’s job was not over with merely arranging facts and interpreting them in a chronological manner in a sophisticated academic language.
The historian has to review one’s own historiographical premises as well of others and present one’s case in that ouvre, as it is here that presuppositions, prejudices, biases and premises of historians and the traditions of history are located. At least two generations of students of history in Jamia Milia Islamia were richer with these historical practices becoming a prevailing mode there given the active presence of such historians. Rizwan remained till the last its most vocal proponent.
This has also allowed him to emerge as the most articulate historian of the national movement and its different strands. He meticulously located the participation of the Muslim in general and nationalist Muslims in particular in the overall universe of the national movement. In his Doctoral thesis, he chose to concentrate on the idea, role and politics of Maulan Abul Kalam Azad, the quintessential nationalist Muslim that one could think of. His work was an examination of the ideological position of the nationalist Muslims and the predicaments they had faced when the Muslim masses joined the Muslim League as against the wishes and exhortation of the Nationalist Muslims against such a move.
Prof. Qaiser showed with a historian’s craft and meticulous attention to detail how his protagonist, Abul Kalam Azad was not after all a failure just because, as other historians like V.N.Dutta and Ian Douglas claimed, he could not carry his co-religionists to the national movement under the leadership of the Congress.
In fact, Prof. Qaiser showed how Azad’s ideological position, that Muslims while following their religious credo must embrace a secular political line, turned out to be socially the most valid position to take. To Prof. Qaiser, Azad was, since his emergence as a national leader of the Muslims in the 1920s, trying to build a consensus on the point where the concerns and angst of the Muslim community, born out of their general and particular location, could be alleviated within the Congress platform so that the Muslim need not seek other forums for such issues. Once the Muslim League emerges in the late thirties, Azad’s work, as Prof Qaiser shows, became more challenging as he had to think afresh and sometime not in a very friendly atmosphere within the Congress, to bring the younger generations of Muslims towards the Congress.
His becoming the President of the Congress in 1940 in many ways was an acknowledgement of the tough job that he had at hand. Prof. Qaiser maintained that Azad had developed an ideological position where Hindus and Muslims could coexist within the framework of a single nation with adequate amount of mutual cooperation and adjustment. The need for such adjustment became greater as the movement for Pakistan became deeper and sharper and the opposition to such demand too began to take intransigent position.
Azad, in his work came out as a historical figure, and not merely as a tragic one, or a literary genius as many others have tried to paint him. The previous historians who had worked on the Khilafat and Non Co-operation movement saw the flank of the Muslim leadership in the shape of Mohammad Ali or Abul Kalam Azad taking their historical places, somehow placing them in the context of the Muslim awakening. Further, the politics within the Muslim community as having to face the new realities of Indian politics and turning into some kind of sectarian politics had also been brought to the fore in earlier histories.
Where Qaiser diverged and made a lasting contribution with his book, Resisting Colonialism and Communal Politics: Maulana Azad and the Making of the Indian Nation (Manohar, Delhi,2011) was the fact that he placed the question of an ideological choice in politics at the centre of the historiography. Thus, Azad made a conscious choice in accepting an ideology which he thought was the ideal path for the Muslims to follow in their opposition to colonialism as well as accepting their role in defining the Indian nation. He held on to this despite being marginalised both by the Muslim masses who joined the League in large numbers, and within the circle of leadership in the Congress and yet, as Qaiser suggests, this ideological choice was the right one in hindsight as this provided a correct picture of the anti colonial feelings of the Muslim masses and their desire to be the part of a free nation. Muslim Communalism provided them a false idea and a false promise.
Communalism, for him, was a modern phenomenon and it used religion and yet communalism cannot be identified with the religious life of people, a line – very subtle at times – being taken by many historians of Muslim communities and Islam in South Asia.
Prof. Qaiser ‘s critique of the writings of Francis Robinson, Peter Hardy or Paul Brass was posited in this understanding. For Prof. Qaiser, modern history of Islam and more so the Muslims in India cannot bypass the issue of their fight against colonialism and their place in negotiating Indian Nationalism. His recent writings and lectures on Jamiat ul Ulema I Hind for example and their role during the 1940s in supporting the Congress and opposing the Muslim league for example, also underpinned Prof Qaiser’s continued emphasis on an appropriate historical trajectory within modern history for the Muslims and Indian nationalism.
.A social scientist and a socialist
Rizwan’s was also an acutely conscious historical persona steeped deeply in the cosmopolitan nature of Indianness. A proud Bihari who came out of the famed Zila School of Munghyr which once upon a time used to be an excellent institution and had already produced Indian’s pioneering historian of science, Prof. Deepak Kumar, Rizwan of late was also steering many good researches on the regional history of Bihar in modern times. He also had been noticing the inter regional differences in the nature of popular protest during the national movement in a recent lecture about how the elite and educated in Bihar actually were happy about the partition of Bengal, as they saw it was needed for the development of Bihar.
His consciousness was also shaped by his being part of the socialist students formation, Samata Yuvajan Sabha, which had produced most of the socialist leaders in the last century. He like thousands of students of his generations believed that a scientific secular and socialist society can be formed by the struggle of the youth. His was an active political academic life in the JNU where he even contested for the JNUSU presidential post in 1987 which also saw his ability to articulate a non communist socialist position for a general population. His was also a non compromising secular position and he intellectually tried to add his contribution to refine the secular position in the light of the actual politics that India was undergoing. One still remembers his visiting and holding meetings in villages for maintaining communal harmony during the Babri Masjid demolition days of 1992-3. He was in fact one of the founding members of the Sadbhavna Mission which Prof. Vipin Kumar Tripathy of IIT Delhi has been steering for almost three decades now.
In the light of the discussion on secularism, the author had asked him once about his steering the move to the granting of minority institution status to Jamia. He was asked whether that was not smacking of a political route to communal position; his answer to this was scientific and quite valid. Why do we assume that by giving an institution a minority status which is a legal status, the political and social outlook of the teachers and students will become communal?
When the country is going to celebrate its 75th year of Independence, it would be a pity that one of the finest and most articulate historians of the national movement will not be with us. His absence will be more acutely felt when we fight our battle for collective consciousness which has been showing enormously dangerous communal portents in the present.
source: http://www.nationalheraldindia.com / National Herald / Home> Obituary / by Rakesh Batabyal / May 03rd, 2021
Dr. Salaam Musheer, noted social worker and former professor of the Bishop Cotton Women’s College in Bengaluru died Monday morning (May 3, 2021) after a short tenure in a hospital. He died of Covid. He was 68. He leaves behind his wife, two sons and a daughter.
An institution builder, Dr. Musheer set up ‘Buzurgon Ka Ghar’ (Home for the Aged) and ‘Apna Ghar’ (a home for the children) in Kolar almost thirty years ago. He also set up Millat group of institutions in Kolar which comprise a High School, a PU college and a Degree college. He founded “Ashiyana: The Home for Children”, in Lakshmi Layout on Bannerghatta Road in Bengaluru nearly 25 years ago. It is a facility patterned after SoS village where four to five kids are assigned to a female caretaker. The building of the Ashiyana Home was dedicated in the name of Janab Ibrahim Khalilullah Khan, a leading light of the Al-Ameen Educational Society. He also set up Muskan, a school meant to take care of children with special needs. It is located in Saraipalya, behind the Manyata Techpark in Bengaluru. He started a similar school (also named ‘Muskan’) in Kolkata nearly decade ago on the invitation of a philanthropist who dedicated four apartments for the purpose.
Musheer sahab hailed from Kolar, a town 70 kms east of Bengaluru. He did his B.Com from the Govt First Grade College in the small town and later added a post-graduate degree from Mysore University. He taught at the Al-Ameen Degree College for three years and later shifted to Bishop Cottons Women’s College which came up in the mid-1980s. He headed the Dept of Commerce for several years and retired from the College. He was later offered the Principal’s position at the Quwathul Islam Degree College which he served for nearly three years. During his tenure as a lecturer, he even earned a doctorate in Management Studies from the Annamalai University.
A man never to sit quiet, Dr. Musheer was deeply inspired by Christian missionaries and their social service organizations. He twice convened the All India Social Workers’ Conference. The first of these was held at the Al-Ameen Residential School in Hosakote while the second was held at Kolkata. During his college days, he conceived the idea of an Islami Baitulmal in Kolar and set up an institution that extended financial assistance to scores of deserving students. He was widely respected for his mentorship and took special care of Muslim girls in institutions where he served and guided them in studies, social etiquette, and careers.
A man alive to the contemporary needs of the society and ever in quest of modern methods of redressal, Dr. Musheer never shied of copying or emulating mores, manners, and institutional set-ups that appealed to him for their efficacy, humaneness, and transparency. ‘Buzurgon ka Ghar’ was a pioneering effort in that the Muslim community was not mentally prepared to have a dedicated facility for assisted living for the aged in those days. His efforts in this direction were initially criticized but later inspired several other social workers to set up such facilities in Bengaluru and elsewhere.
Only a day before dawn of the holy month of Ramazan, he convened a meeting of trustees of the Muskan where plans were chalked out to use the part of the facility (it has a space exceeding 12,000 sq. ft) for setting up a coaching centre for various competitive exams for Govt jobs. A month before that he drove us to Kolar where he had organized Abdur Raheem Memorial Lecture in order to commemorate the services of Kolar-based philanthropist and builder Janab Abdur Raheem, whose unstinted support enabled Musheer sahab in realizing several of his dream projects.
This writer had the privilege of travelling with him to Kolkata once and Berhampore and Murshidabad on another occasion where he held workshop to guide several social workers and institution builders in West Bengal.
A man with positive outlook and profound believer in action, Dr. Musheer would take upon himself the task of translating ideas into institutions if he determined that there was no other way of achieving the objective.
His death is a grievous loss for the community which is so deficient of role models. May his soul rest in peace! Ameen!
He was laid to rest the same afternoon in Kuddus Saheb Burial Ground in Jayamahal by mourners who gathered at a short notice.
source: http://www.thecognate.com / The Cognate / Home> Obituary / by M A Siraj / May 04th, 2021
Just this week, the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has lost three faculty members and five retired professors to Covid-19 or after showing symptoms.
The university has been swamped with cases in the past few days — 30 faculty and staff members have tested positive and been admitted to AMU’s Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, as have 12 consultants, 20 resident doctors and some paramedical staff members of the medical college.
AMU officials said noted critic and senior faculty member at the department of Urdu Prof Maula Bakhsh Ansari, 58; faculty member of the Sunni theology section Prof Ehsanullah Fahad, 50, and in-charge of leather and footwear technology section at University Polytechnic AMU Saeed Uzzaman, 51, were serving faculty members who died in the past two days.
“Prof Ansari had been admitted to a private hospital and died within a few days on Wednesday (April 21). He had not been tested for Covid-19, but he had symptoms of the disease,” said former director of the Urdu Academy AMU, Rahat Abrar . Ansari had been working on six projects of books on stylistics, critical studies and cultural studies. They are yet to be published.
Fahad, meanwhile, had been admitted to AMU’s medical college for Covid-19 treatment. “After his report came back negative, he was moved to the non-Covid ward. But he died two days later of post-Covid complications,” medical college principal Prof Shahid Ali Siddiqui said. He, too, died on Wednesday.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News / Agra News / by Anuja Jaiswal, TNN / April 24th, 2021
Malegaon (Nashik District), MAHARASHTRA / NEW DELHI :
Dr Shafeeque Ahmed Ansari of Jamia Millia Islamia
Dr Shafeeq Ansari had died while working for Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi at around 12:45 pm Friday.
Malegaon:
With tearful eyes, Dr Shafeeque Ahmed Ansari was laid to rest at Bada Qabaristan in Malegaon a little before sunset on Saturday April 24, 2021. He was 54.
Dr Shafeeq Ansari had died while working for Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi at around 12:45 pm Friday after cardiac arrest. He is survived by ailing mother, wife and two adopted children.
Professor Shafeeq Ansari was originally from Malegaon and had to fight acute poverty to reach to the position he held when he breathed his last.
“Educational Journey”
Dr Shafeeque did his schooling from Malegaon before graduating from MSG College, Malegaon. Later he moved to Pune University Physics Department where he did his MSc, Mphil and PhD.
He completed his PhD in 1998-99 on Semiconductor thin films. He joined post-doctoral position at Chonbuk National University Jeonju South Korea. After that he moved to JAIST Khanazawa in Japan as JSPS fellow.
Four years later, he moved back to Chonbuk as “Brain Pool Scientist” – one of the Falgship Korean national program on Science at that time. He spent another three years as scientist then moved to Najran University in Saudi Arabia.
After a brief stay at Najran University, Dr Shafeeque Ansari moved to Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi as Associate Professor in 2008-2009 where his wife Prof. Zubaida was also a Senior Faculty in the same discipline.
At Jamia Millia Islamia, Dr Shafeeq played a key role is shaping the “Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Basic Sciences (CIRBSc)”. He later became its Director, working on this post from November 2016 to November 2019.
“A Brilliant Scientist”
Prof. Shafeeque was a brilliant scientist, great administrator and man of principles. He trained tens of researchers during his career from 2002-2021.
He played a key and instrumental role in elevating the ranking of Jamia Millia Islamia from 72 to 12 as Director of Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) where he invested a huge effort to put data into prospective.
Dr Shafeeque Ansari also worked as Coordinator Institute of Eminence and Promotion of University Research and Scientific Excellence(PURSE) run by Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt of India at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi. He was also In-charge of the Central Instrumentation Facility of the Jamia.
Prof. Shafeeq was humble, affectionate human being, great mentor, great character, and a great and amazing personality. He was a great mentor for young students in Korea and Japan, and remained close to their heart till his death. He played crucial role in shaping his students as young researcher.
The contribution of Dr Shafeeq in Science and bringing motivation, especially among Indian Muslims, will be remembered forever.
May Almighty enlighten his grave and grant him Jannatul Firdous. Amen
[The co-writer of this obituary, Dr. Ahsanulhaq Qureshi, hails from Kashmir and is a student of Dr Shafeeque. Dr Qureshi is currently working as Sr. Professor in Abu Dhabi.]
source: http://www.ummid.com /Ummid.com / Home> Obituray / by Dr Ahsanulhaq Qureshi and Zohair M Safwan, ummid.com / April 25th, 2021
Manzoor Ahtesham was a Hindi writer from Bhopal, who raised important questions about the identity of the increasingly alienated Muslim minority
Decorated Hindi writer Manzoor Ahtesham signed off on a well-spent life in a hospital around midnight in Bhopal on Sunday last. When he breathed his last, he was in the company of a doctor and some paramedical staff as he was a COVID-19 patient and family members were not allowed.
He is survived by the families of two daughters and that of younger brother Aijaz Ghafoor, a well-known interior designer in Bhopal. Manzoor had recently lost his wife and elder brother to COVID-19.
Born in April 1948, Manzoor belonged to one of the middle class families of Afghan lineage in picturesque Bhopal. He was handsome, very polite, unassuming, and friendly. A gentleman to the core, Manzoor had a sensitive heart, a sharp mind, and frugal lifestyle. For more than seven years that I spent in Bhopal as Resident Editor of Hindustan Times from 2000, and even later during numerous visits to the city, I found people had only good things to say about him.
His parents wanted him to do engineering. He took admission, tried for a few years, but gave up, as his interest was in literature. When his brother Aijaz started a furniture showroom in late 70s, he requested Manzoor to help him out by being there. Aijaz fondly says, “Many visitors to the showroom would tell me that Manzoor Bhai was not to be seen, though he used to be around, sitting in one corner surrounded by books.”
Over my 35 years in journalism, I have interacted with numerous writers and public figures, but none can match Manzoor’s depth of understanding of world literature. There is hardly any classical or contemporary writer of repute in English, Hindi, and Urdu literature whom Manzoor had not read. “Our younger generation has stopped reading books,” he would often lament.
During one of the several evenings that I spent with him discussing poetry, novels, plays, and world affairs, he talked very fondly of Orhan Pamuk’s writings. It was in July or August of 2006 that he had told me he expected Pamuk to win the Nobel Prize in Literature that year. A couple of months later in October, Pamuk did get the Nobel.
Bhopal’s topography — an abundance of greenery, large water bodies, and generally pleasant weather through the year – also helped Manzoor’s literary sensibilities to flourish. I remember him telling me once that the name of his highly awarded novel Sukha Bargad (A Dying Banyan), came from Dela Wadi, a forest area near Bhopal having several banyan trees. The novel tells the story of a middle-class Muslim family’s struggle to come to terms with the transformation of Indian society after partition, particularly worsening Hindu-Muslim relations.
Some institutions, such as Bharat Bhawan, a premier multi-arts autonomous complex and museum, and theatre and literary personalities such as BV Karanth, Habib Tanvir, and Shani Gulsher Ahmed helped Manzoor hone his literary skills. His interest in theatre helped him get the role of a professor in Merchant Ivory Production’s film In Custody (Muhafiz in Urdu) in 1993.
In 2007, New York magazine cited Dastan-e Lapata, (The Tale of the Missing Man) as one of “the world’s best untranslated novels.” The book, which raises important questions about Muslim identity, was translated into English in 2018 by Jason Grunebaum and Ulrike Stark of the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. It has received the Global Humanities Translation Prize.
Manzoor was a recipient of several awards such as Shikhar Samman, Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad Puruskar, Vir Singh Deo Award, and several others. The government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award, in 2003. However, writer and poet Rajesh Joshi was recently quoted in a Hindi newspaper saying that Manzoor had wanted to exchange his Padma Shri with his Sahitya Akademi award which Rajesh had got at about the same time.
Manzoor Ahtesham’s first published short story in 1973 was Ramzaan Mein Maut (Death in Ramzaan). Ironically, we lost him during this time of fasting and prayer.
source: http:///www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> Obituary / by Askari Zaidi / April 19th, 2021
