Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 11: Celebrating renowned short story writer, Saadat Hassan Manto’s centenary, the J&K Academy of Art, Culture and Languages organised a seminar here today.
Minister for Tourism and Culture, Nawang Rigzin Jora was the chief guest while Deputy Chairman, Legislative Council, Mohammed Yusuf Taing was the guest of honour on the occasion.
Describing Manto a revolutionary author, the Minister said that the late short story writer was one of the finest writers of short stories in the world and as a literary organisation the Cultural Academy would keep on holding events on him. He assured early completion of Tagore Hall and said that he would personally see to it that the hall was thrown open for public in the shortest possible timeframe.
Speaking on the occasion, Taing described the late writer as a high stature short story author and impressed upon the need of organising such events to pay tribute to the great legends.
Earlier, Chief Editor, Urdu, M. Ashraf Tak said that the Academy has many Manto centric events in the pipeline and the organisation would do its best in showcasing Manto’s contribution to Urdu short story writing.
As part of the event, a paper reading session was also held in which
Ghulam Nabi Khayal read an extensive paper on Manto. Captioned as ‘Manto and Kashmir’ the paper introduced the audience to abstracts from Manto’s correspondence with India’s first Prime Minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru.