JAMMU: Bihar Urdu Academy has awarded the eminent Urdu poet and writer Balraj Bakshi for the year 2016.
Balraj Bakshi has been awarded for his short stories collection in Urdu title ‘Eik Boond Zindgi’. The short stories have been appreciated by Urdu fiction critiques from across the country.
It should be pertinent to add here that Balraj Bakshi is the first ever recipient of the Bihar Urdu Academy award in this category from the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
It should also be remembered that the same book was awarded by the Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy last year, and thus, this book becomes the first ever to have been awarded by the two Urdu Academies of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Yet Balraj Bakshi has another first to his credit. He happens to be the only recipient of Senior Fellowship Award in Urdu from Union Ministry of Culture worth Rs. 2.88 lakh in the year 2007.