The Department of Urdu, Amar Singh (AS) College, Srinagar today organized a one day workshop on “Urdu Sahafat- Ahmiyat-wa-Ifadiyat”, here. 

The students of the Skill Course attended the workshop and participated in the exchange of ideas on the subject.

Principal, Amar Singh College, Prof. Bashir Ahmad Rather inaugurated the workshop. In his inaugural address, Prof. Rather highlighted the importance of Urdu Journalism. He said that India has great linguistic diversity, and Urdu is the language of all communities, symbolizing our composite culture.

He added that Urdu language has a special value in the lives of communities, so Urdu-speakers must focus on propagation of their mother tongue, primarily by teaching the language and its script to their children. He further said that there are some languages and dialects facing danger of extinction and the need is to do research, and work for preservation of such languages. 

Prof. Rather congratulated the Department of Urdu, for organizing a workshop on Urdu Journalism.

Earlier, Dr. Jamsheeda Akhter, Assistant Professor, (Course Director) Department of Urdu, Amar Singh College Srinagar, welcomed the guests and resource persons of the Workshop and introduced the theme of the workshop. She said that such programmes shall prove very helpful for enhancing the writing skill of the students preferring Urdu Journalism as their career.

Later, the resource person of the programme Dr. Altaf Anjum, (renowned literary, researcher and critic) threw light on the subject. He said that the interplay of media and language is the key reference point for linguistic studies and Urdu journalistic language adding that during the course an idiom has evolved and undergone changes-a natural linguistic phenomenon. He mentioned the role of Sir Syed, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar and others in the development of Urdu journalism, and also mentioned old Urdu newspapers like Jam-i-Jahan-Numa etc.

Delivering the keynote address, Dr. Deeba Sarmand (Dean, Cluster University of Srinagar) said students of journalism and mass communication learn technical part of news and script writing in universities and colleges but there is not much focus on improving their language skills. She added that training in content and script-writing with focus on language should be the part of the curriculum.

Dr. Zahid Zaffar, Assistant Professor (Co- Course coordinator) presented the vote of than