National Award-winning lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar
has won the Richard Dawkins Award.
He is the first Indian to win this award.
The Richard Dawkins Award is named after the famous biologist.
The award was named after him.
The award encourages people to be critical, supportive, promote equality, refrain from corruption, etc.
The award is presented to those who are secular, rational and logical.
Other famous awardees include Ricky Gervais, Stephen Fry, Bill Maher, etc.
But Javed Akhtar was honoured with the award, for his critical thinking about various religious beliefs,
for not blindly following religious beliefs and constantly question them
and for his moral values.
Javed Akhtar has supported various social causes,
without favouring any religion. He supports everyone regardless of their religion.
He is not shy about his opinions and openly voices his disagreements.
He has expressed his views on issues like CAA, Islamophobia and others.
Shabana Azmi in her tweet wrote, "Javed Akhtar always looked upto Richard Dawkins for critical thinking and honesty.
Now you are awarded by Dawkins himself. Congratulations! You are a Hero!"
Other celebrities like Anil Kapoor, Nikhil Advani
 Urmila Matondkar and Dia Mirza also congratulated him on Twitter.
