Veteran Bollywood writer, lyricist and social activist Javed Akhtar won the Richard Dawkins Award 2020. He is the first Indian to receive this award. He won the award for advancing human progress, critical thinking, and humanist value.
The award named after English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has been presented since 2003. The prestigious award is given to a distinguished individual from the world of scholarship, science, entertainment, and education. The previous recipients of this prestigious award include English- American intellectual, social critic, writer, and philosopher Christopher Hitchens and American TV Host, political commentator and comedian Bill Maher.
@Javedakhtarjadu wins Richard Dawkins Award 2020 for critical thinking , holding religious dogma upto scrutiny,advancing human progress and humanist values. Awesome ?? https://t.co/tJy9CBDOzI
— Azmi Shabana (@AzmiShabana) June 7, 2020
Javed Akhtar who became the first Indian to receive the award has been known for his views on polity, art, culture, society, secularism, rising communal tensions, and religion. On hearing the news he mentioned that he was deeply honoured as he has been a great admirer of Richard Dawkins ever since he read his first book ‘The Selfish Gene’.
Akhtar has been a recipient of 5 National awards for the best lyricist for the movies Border, Lagaan, Refugee, Godmother, and Saaz. With an abundance of Filmfare awards in his name, he also won Sahitya Akademi Award in 2013 in Urdu. He was awarded Padma Shri in 1999 and Padma Bhushan in 2007.
Javed Akhtar has been known for his screenplay for the iconic movies such as Sholay, Deewar, Zanzeer along with Salim Khan. These movies also starred Bollywood Superstar Amitabh Bachchan.
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