Ilyas Rashidi

Ilyas Rashidi was a Pakistani publisher and editor who founded the film magazine Nigar, dedicated to films and film personalities, in 1948 and the historic and prestigious Nigar Awards on 17 July 1957.

Born in Delhi in 1925 he worked with his brothers, Mohammad Usman Azad and Mohammad Umar Farooqi, for the Delhi-based Urdu newspaper Anjum (owned by Umar) which shifted to Karachi after partition. He launched Nigar from there, modelling it after the Indian film magazine Filmfare. Ilyas had purchased a children's magazine Monthly Nigar from his friend Ibne Hassan Nigar, and re-branded it as a weekly film magazine.

The Ilyas Rashidi Lifetime Achievement Gold Medal is presented annually at the Nigar Awards ceremony and event. In January 2017, a press conference was held at a local hotel in Karachi to announce the scheduled date of 16 March 2017 for the 47th Nigar Awards.

Death and legacy
Ilyas Rashidi died in 1997 in Karachi. He was also affectionately called Baba-e-Filmi Sahafat (Pioneer of Film Journalism) in Pakistan. His son, Aslam Ilyas Rashidi temporarily suspended the annual awarding of Nigar Awards from 2005 to 2012 due to a then ongoing decline in Pakistani film industry during that period. In 2012, Aslam Ilyas Rashidi announced plans to revive the Nigar Awards for films and stated that this time it would also include awards for the Pakistani television industry.