Punjabi writer and folk culture researcher Ninder Ghugianvi, who studied only up to Class VIII and once worked as an orderly to a judge at the Faridkot district court, has been awarded the Senior Research Fellowship by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, through the Centre for Cultural Resources and Training, New Delhi.He has written and edited nearly 70 books and is today the subject of several doctorate studies across universities.A resident of Ghugiana village in Faridkot district, Ghugianvi has been granted the fellowship for two years. Under it, he will undertake a research project titled “125 years of Punjabi singing” and write a book documenting the evolution of Punjabi music over the last century and a quarter. The Ministry of Culture will publish the book on completion of the research.Eminent Punjabi literary figures Ram Sarup Ankhi and Dalip Kaur Tiwana had earlier received the same fellowship and carried out research projects under it. Literary and cultural circles welcomed the announcement, calling it a matter of pride for Punjabi language, literature and folk heritage.His years as a court orderly became the basis of his autobiographical work Mein Saan Judge Da Ardali. The book has been translated into several languages, including Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Urdu, Maithili, Sindhi and Bhojpuri, and has been included in the syllabi of universities such as Jammu, Kurukshetra and Punjabi University. He was conferred the Punjab government’s Shiromani Punjabi Sahitkar Award for 2020 and is also a Sahitya Akademi winner.His body of work includes biographies of Punjabi folk singers such as Lal Chand Yamla Jatt and Surinder Kaur, besides travelogues and writings on Punjab’s judiciary. Several M Phil and PhD scholars have researched his literary works, and six of his books have been part of university curricula.Ghugianvi earlier served as Writer in Residence at Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha, and as Professor of Practice at the Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, where he was the first Punjabi writer to hold that post.