The Gandhara Hindko Board has extended invitations to foreign delegates for participation in the two-day grand Hindko Conference, to be held in Peshawar from November 19 to 20.
A meeting of the organising committee of the "Hindko Aalmi Conference" was held with Haji Mohammad Haleem Jan, Chief Organiser, in the chair, which discussed in detail the programme of the conference.
Office-bearers and members of the Gandhara Hindko Board attended the meeting. Convener for the Hindko Conference, Mohammad Ziauddin, told the meeting that as a first step the invitations had been sent to the Hindkowans in foreign countries, informing them about the dates of the mega event.
He said the invitees included expatriates living in England, Ireland, United States of America, Canada, France, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and India. He said some Indian cinema legends from the Walled City of Peshawar would also be contacted with the request to grace the occasion.
Gandhara Hindko Board Chairman and Patron-in-Chief of the Hindko Conference, Professor Dr Zahoor Ahmad Awan (Tamgha-i-Imtiaz) said that the conference would have a total of six sessions.
Researched-based papers would be an important feature of the conference. Also, there would be a grand Hindko poetic sitting (Mushaira), folk show and drama at the historic Gor Gathri to make the programme more interesting.
Conference Organising committee Chairman Assistant Professor Dr Adnan Gul told the gathering that the central office of the Gandhara Hindko Board had been declared the focal point and the meeting of the different committees were being held regularly there on every Saturday to streamline the arrangements for the conference.
A prominent City industrialist, Khwaja Khalid Sultan, eminent educationist, Khwaja Yawer Naseer, Chief Executive of Radio Buraq, Syed Fayyaz Ali Shah, and a senior journalist, Sharif Farooq also attended the meeting.
Gandhara Hindko Board is an active literary-cum- cultural body working for the preservation and promotion of Hindko language one of the two main languages of NWFP, which is spoken not only Peshawar, Kohat, Nowshera, Hazara regions of NWFP, but also in Potohar and Kashmir.
It has to its credit 15 Hindko books on different genres of the Hindko literature, including a voluminous Hindko dictionary. The board plans to hold a two-day grand Hindko Conference in Peshawar from November 19 to 20 with the sole aim to include the expatriate Hindkowans in the work it has been doing for the Hindko language and culture since 1993.