Abdullah Jan Abid

Dr Abdullah Jan Abid is currently working as Associate Professor of Pashto and is Chairman of the Department of Pakistani Languages at Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad. Before assuming the duties of the Chair in October 2016, Dr Abid was Incharge of the Department of Pakistani Languages from 2011 to 2015. He organized two international and eight national conferences. He is the editor of ‘Journal of Pakistani Languages and Literature’—Pakistan’s first multilingual research journal. He has presented papers in several national and international conferences; and has to his credit thirty-seven research articles in national and international journals and sixteen books. He is also the author of the award-winning book titled, “A Brief History of Pashto Language and Literature”, which is included in the syllabi of various universities and the CSS syllabus. He is the recipient of the following awards: The Justice Kayani Award (Abasin Arts Council, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 2007); Best Urdu Prose (Pakistan Writers Guild Lahore, 2007); and Best Teacher Award (Allama Iqbal Open University and UNESCO, 2013). Currently, he is working on establishing an Abstracting and Indexing Agency of Pakistani Languages Journals (Pashto, Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Saraiki, and Brahui). Through this Agency (HEC funded project under Thematic Research Grant Program), the AIOU will provide databases in Pakistani languages and literature by providing free online access to downloadable research articles, facilitating researchers and academics.