Communal divide in Gujarat anti-human: Gulzar : HindustanTimes.com

Well-known lyricist, filmmaker and writer Gulzar has said politicians are responsible for the "anti-human" communal polarisation of Gujarat.

Gulzar, who was here to attend a function organised by Unicef to interact with deprived children Sunday evening, also expressed concern at the India-Pakistan divide.

He released a book of poems by Bihar legislative council chairman Jabir Hussain. The poems refer to the communal killings in Gujarat and also tension between India and Pakistan.

He hinted at working for the child victims of the Gujarat sectarian violence.

"For me children are neither Hindu, nor Muslim, neither Gujarati nor Bihari.

There is a need to change the mindset, elders must think of change their attitude towards them," he said.

Gulzar criticised the federal government for not promoting films for children.

He stressed the need to make more children's films. "There is an urgent need that all states should set up a children's film society to promote films for this section," he said.

He lauded moviemaker Vishal Bhardwaj's effort in making "Makri", a children's film, a commercial success.
posted by v9y at 2:06 PM

Gulzar wins Sahitya Akademi award - The Times of India

NEW DELHI: Partition, the local trains of Mumbai, Bimal Roy... these are the focus of some of the short stories in Gulzar's Dhuan. The anthology has won him the Sahitya Akademi for Urdu, while Amit Choudhuri wins it for the English novel, A New World, and Mahesh Elkunchwar for Yugant, the play in Marathi.

These are among the 22 awards announced by the Sahitya Akademi here on Saturday. At the same meeting the executive board selected 17 books for the Translation award initiated in 1989. The awards, of Rs 40,000 for writing and Rs 15,000 for translation, will be presented on February 17, 2003.

Ami O Banabehari, a novel by Sandipan Chattopadhyay; the Malayalam poems of K G Sankara Pillai; Mahat Aitijya, criticism by Assamese writer Nalinidhar Bhattacharya; Do Panktiyon Ke Beech by Hindi poet Rajesh Joshi, Tattvamasi in Gujarati by Dhruv Bhat and Gandhi Manisha, an Oriya biography by Sarat Kumar Mohanty are the other winners.

Qurratulain Hyder, Indira Goswami, Ashokamitran, Ashok Vajpeyi, Damodar Singh, and Jetho Lalwani were in the panel of judges for the different languages. Books in Dogri, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Manipuri, Nepali, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil and Telugu have also been awarded.
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posted by v9y at 3:56 PM