Attash Durrani

Early life Durrani was born in Montgomery (now Sahiwal), Punjab. He received his PhD in Urdu terminology in 1991 from the University Oriental College, University of the Punjab, Lahore. He was a curriculum and textbook development specialist for Urdu, literacy, basic and at all the higher education levels and Urdu informatics for ADB, GIZ/GTZ, ESRA, JICA, UNESCO, US Aid, Islamabad, Pakistan and Curriculum Wing, Federal Ministry of Education, AIOU and Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC). He has also shown interest in gemmology, writing books on Urdu jawaharat. His subjects were Urdu language and literature, linguistics, Education, literacy, curriculum and textbook development, Urdu Informatics, research, dictionaries; and terminologies, bibliographies and encyclopedias, and also Iqbal Studies, Pakistan Studies, Gemology, History and Philosophy of science. His translation work goes for more than 50 thousand pages of Literary, Official, Technical, and Computer Localization. Translations include Hymns of Akhenaton, and The Book of Precious Stones by Al-Biruni into Urdu, published by National Book Foundation Islamabad. He has served as a professor of Pakistani languages, in Allama Iqbal Open University. He has also served as Director multimedia (Urdu Medium) e-course-ware (Urdu e-literacy), in Computer Science and Pakistani Languages Departments, Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad. He has served as Project Director, Center of Excellence for Urdu Informatics, National Language Authority, Pakistan. He also worked in National Book Foundation as Asst. Editor monthly Kitab, and several other responsibilities. The Impact of his Ghost Characters Theory created two doctoral theses: one in Pakistan in 2011 in CS Dept. International Islamic University, Islamabad by Dr. M. Imran Razzak on Online Urdu Character Recognition in Unconstrained Environment; and the second in India in 2013 in CS Dept. North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon by Dr. Imran Khan Pathan on Automatic Segmentation and Recognition of Offline Handwritten Urdu Text. He is also known as Localization Guru of Pakistan. This is also highlighted in the Weekly "Technology Times ", Islamabad.

He was the first in-charge of Microsoft Local Language Program for Urdu Language. He was also Head of Bureau of Translations, Dictionaries & Terminologies at the National Language Authority, Pakistan. His project of Urdu Informatics revealed an Institute for Urdu Informatics, related with Urdu language research and development for its use on computers. He has been honoured with a higher civil award 'Sitara-i-Imtiaz' conferred by the President of Pakistan on 14 August 2015 and decorated on 23 March 2016. His books Iqbal ka Insiklopedia and Pakistani Urdu received appreciations from former presidents of Pakistan. He was deriving a hypothesis on Pakistani as a language on e-world, a theory against Hindustani. He was the flag-career activist linguist of Language Planning, Development, Promotion and Policy for Urdu and Pakistani languages.

He has been listed in international WHO'S WHO in Translation and Terminology (1995), published by Union Latine Infoterm International Where, How and Praetorius. He is also listed in the LINGUIST List. His credentials as an expert in multilingualism are mentioned in International Directory of Multilingualism, Union Latine, Paris (2007).

He has also been listed in the List of notable or famous alumni/graduates/students from University of the Punjab; prominent alums from this institution include celebrities, politicians and business people. He is the 1st theorist on Computer from Pakistan in the document of Ghost Characters Atomization-Combination Theory accepted and implemented by the UNICODE.