Javed Akhtar is an Indian poet, lyricist, screenwriter and political activist. Known for his work in Hindi cinema, he has won five National Film Awards, and received the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2007, two of India's highest civilian honours.
Akhlaq Mohammad Khan, better known by his takhallusShahryar, was an Indian academician, and a doyen of Urdu poetry in India. As a Hindi film lyricist, he is best known for his lyrics in Gaman (1978) and Umrao Jaan (1981) directed by Muzaffar Ali. He retired as the head of the Urdu Department at the Aligarh Muslim University, and thereafter he remained sought after name in mushairas or poetic gatherings, and also co-edited the literary magazine Sher-o-Hikmat.
Jayant Parmar is an Indian Urdu language poet known for raising Dalit issues in his poetry. Parmar was born in a poor family. At a young age, he began to paint miniature paintings for a frame maker. Parmar realized that the frame maker had a separate pot for him because he was Dalit. This saddened Parmar and he quit.
Khaleel ur Rehman from the Indian state of Karnataka, is better known by his pen name Khaleel Mamoon is a noted Urdu poet whose poetry collection Aafaaq ki Taraf won the 2011 Sahitya Akademi Award for works in Urdu.
Sheen Kaaf Nizam, born in the year 1945 or 1946 in Jodhpur, India, is an Urdu poet and literary scholar. His birth name is Shiv Kishan Bissa. Sheen Kaaf Nizam is his pen name. He has edited many volumes of poets in Devanagari including Deewan-e-Ghalib and Deewan-e-Mir.
Rohzin is the fourth novel of Rahman Abbas. On this novel he won India's highest literary Award Sahitya Akademi Award in 2018. Published in 2016 by Arshia Publications, Delhi, and launched at the Jashn-e-Rekhta, Delhi on 14 February 2016. Since, then, Rohzin has been widely debated in India, Pakistan, The Middle East, Canada, Switzerland and Germany. The author coins the word- 'Rohzin' to signify the psychological trauma of children who witness the betrayal of their parents/sleeping with someone else. Critics in the Global South think of Rohzin as a literary landmark in Urdu literature.
Shafey Kidwai is an Indian academic, bilingual critic, translator, columnist, and author. He is the professor in the Department of Mass Communications at Aligarh Muslim University. He has written twelve books in English and Urdu. His seminal study, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Reason, Religion and Nation (Routledge,2020) has got wide accalim across the globe. He writes for The Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Frontline, The Outlook, Indian Literature, The Book Review, The Stateman, and Siyasat.com .Reputed literary journals of the subcontinent carry his articles regularly and he is often regarded as one of the best modern academic critics in Urdu.
