New Delhi, January 28: The New Delhi-based Institute of Objective Studies (IOS) has decided to confer the 12th Shah Waliullah Award on journalist Iftikhar Gilani, strategic affair editor of DNA.

The award carries a cheque of Rs. 1 lakh, a citation and memento. The junior category award goes to Dr. Nasheed Imtiaz, assistant professor of psychology at Aligarh Muslim University. This category carries a cheque of Rs. 25,000.

The IOS instituted this award in 1999 “to keep alive the legacy of the great Islamic scholar and sufi Shah Waliullah Muhaddis Dehlavi”, Dr. Qamar Ishaq, office secretary Shah Waliullah Award administering board said here today.

At a meeting of the board the decision to award Gilani and Nasheed was taken on January 26. The meeting of the board was attended by IOS Chairman, Dr. Mohammad Manzoor Alam, Justice A.M. Ahmadi, former chief justice of India, Prof. Mohsin Usmani, Prof. Z.M. Khan, Prof. Ishtiyaque Danish and Prof. Afzal Wani.

Great scholars of Islam, Quranic studies and law have got this prestigious annual award since 1999.

A brief account of Iftikhar Gilani’s career:

Iftikhar Gilani perhaps one of most widely read journalists in South Asia. Currently, he is Editor (Strategic Affairs) and Chief of National Bureau of Daily News Analysis (DNA), published form Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Indore and Jaipur. DNA is amongst India’s top five widely circulated English language newspapers with a circulation of over one million.

He has headed the Political Bureau at Tehelka.com and its business daily “Financial World”. Till few years ago, he was heading the Delhi Bureau of multi-lingual Kashmir Times, the widely circulated newspaper of Jammu and Kashmir published from Jammu and Srinagar simultaneously.

He was also the Special Correspondent (India) for Daily Times, an independent and mainstream English newspaper of Pakistan, published from Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi. Gilani also covered India for Urdu Service of Radio Deutche Well (DW), German Radio. His columns appeared regularly in The Friday Times, an esteemed weekly from Pakistan and Urdu daily Inquilab (India), and in Weekly Kashmir Life, published from Srinagar (Kashmir). Currently, also a coloumnist in a popular Urdu daily of Pakistan Dunya. These columns hare widely appreciated and reproduced.

He has worked with various national newspapers, news and feature agencies in India, notably in the Indian Express and The Pioneer. He has also headed a research project on “Insurgencies in South Asia”. Gilani was conferred the award for ‘Outstanding Contribution in Media’ by the government of Jammu and Kashmir in 2010.

Author of 2005 Penguin book ‘My Days in Prison’. Urdu translation of his book won him India’s prestigious Sahitiya Akademi award, in 2008. A visiting fellow of Dart Centre, Australia, a project of Columbia University of Journalism, Iftikhar Gilani has been deputy chairman of Indian Parliament’s Press Advisory Committee and also vice-president of the Press Association of India. Currently, he is also a Trustee of Delhi Centre for Media Research and Publication Trust Having several research papers to his credit, he is also an external discussant at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), a premier security thin-tank in India and a research advisor at the Centre for Land ware Studies (CLAWS), a strategic think-tank.