Sindh Culture Minister Inaugurates Second Hyderabad Literature

HYDERABAD, Jan 6 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 06th Jan, 2017 ) : Provincial Minister for Culture, Tourism and Archives, Syed Sardar Ali Shah has inaugurated 3- Day "Hyderabad Literature Festival" on Friday and said Sindh government had decided to organize an international seminar on "Moen Jo Daro" next month.

While addressing the inaugural ceremony of the festival, the provincial minister expressed regrets over lack of creative minds in the provincial culture department and said it was because of the fact that Non Governmental Organization had been assigned responsibilities to organize such activities on voluntarily basis.

The three-day second Hyderabad Literature Festival (HLF-2) had been organized by academy for the Promotion of Art, Literature and Literacy (APAL) here at Mumtaz Mirza Auditorium. The provincial minister said there were sufficient funds available with the government to organize such activities but due to lack of professionalism and creativity, the department had assigned responsibilities of organizing such literary activities to private persons.

Syed Sardar Ali Shah also gave a cash prize of Rs. 50,000/- to Intekhab Burdi and Rahat Burdi who had memorized "Shah jo Risalo" completely and also announced a "Latif Award" for them which would be given to them on next Urs celebrations of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai.

There are sufficient funds available with the government to organize such activities but due to lack of professionalism and creativity, the department concerned is giving responsibility of organizing the literary activities to non-government persons, the minister expressed these remarks while speaking as a chief guest at the inaugural ceremony of Hyderabad Literature Festival here at Mumtaz Mirza Auditorium on Friday evening.

The minister who gave cash prize of Rs. 50,000/- to Intekhab Burdi and Rahat Burdi who completely memorized "Shah-jo-Risalo" and also announced “Latif” Awards for them in the next urs celebrations of Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai.

The minister informed that his ministry was organizing international seminar on "Moen-jo-Daro" in the next month with participation of around 40 researchers and historians from USA, UK, Japan, Italy, France and other different countries of the world with objective to introduce historic archives at international level.

Such type of international seminar under the theme "Save Moen-jo-Daro" had been organized during the tenure of former Prime Minister, Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, which had drawn the attention of world community towards this historic site of Sindh, he informed and also announced the organizing of Laar and Coastal Festivals soon.

The minister expressed regrets over attitude of writers and poets of Sindh who preferred to apply for honorarium but never raised their voice over decision of UNESCO to expel Makli Graveyard from the world's heritage list because of no protection of this historic site.

Among others, the Consul General of Italy Mr. Gianlucca Ruboggotti, Sindh Secretary Culture Akbar Leghari, Hameed Akhund, Dr. Kaleemullah Lashari, Noor-ul-Huda Shah, Prof. Abdul Ghafoor Memon, Ishaq Samejo, Inam Shaikh and Iazhar Soomro also present in the opening ceremony of the literary festival.