Attash Durrani (; 22 January 1952 – 30 November 2018) was a Pakistani linguist, researcher, critic, author, educationist, and gemologist. He wrote more than 275 books and approximately 500 papers in Urdu and English. His main disciplines of study were language, education, computer science, and information technology. He was the recipient of the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz and Sitara-e-Imtiaz for his work of Urdu language and literature.
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.
He also earned certificates in statistics, journalism, project management, research methodology and curriculum and text book development courses offered by the University of the Punjab, Institute of Education and Research, Lahore; Pakistan Planning and Management Institute (PPMI), Islamabad, University of Bradford (United Kingdom); COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan; Project Management Institute (PMI) (US); National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan; and International Bureau of Education (IBE), UNESCO, Geneva. He supervised a number of MPhil, MS, PhD students on Urdu, Punjabi, Iqbaliat, Linguistics, Translatology, Education, Informatics, and Computer Science projects/theses.
Career
Durrani wrote many books and articles in Urdu and English languages. 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.
He was chairman of the subcommittee on standardization (Cabinet Committee on the Implementation of Urdu) in the Ministry of Information, Pakistan. He was also honorary chairman INKSOFT Inc., Islamabad, (Pakistan's first Software Localization Company) for the Localization for Urdu, Pakistani (Pashto, Punjabi, Sindhi), Persian, Dari and Arabic languages. 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. He was serving National Book Foundation as Advisor, Textbook Development since May 2014 for redesigning of textbooks for NBF establishing as Federal Textbook Board, Islamabad, as per style guides he already developed for Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore and federal Education. He was a member of the National Curriculum Council, Federal Ministry of Education Islamabad.
A thesis of M.Phil. level is written by Mussarat Khan Zahidi on the contributions of his works, in the Department of Urdu, University of Peshawar in 2007. Another Study of M.Phil. (Urdu) is conducted by Khalid Mehmood in the University of Sargodha on the linguistic contributions of his works in 2013. Two M.A. and B.A. honours level theses on his literary contributions are developed in the Education University, and FCC University, Lahore in 2012, and several others. 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.