The Nigar Awards

The Nigar Awards, the official awards of Pakistani film industry, are the oldest awards to honour the show business personalities of Pakistan. The awards were first introduced in 1958 by Ilyas Rasheedi,[ the editor of weekly Nigar magazine, with a purpose to recognize the achievements of those who worked in the film industry. Since then, the awards are presented annually. During the 1990s the prominence of awards was eclipsed by the National Awards. However, over the years the awards have gradually regained their eminence as the premier movie awards of the country.

History
Ilyas Rashidi had acquired experience in the field of entertainment journalism through his association with his elder brother Umer Azad's daily newspaper Anjum, which had just shifted its offices from Delhi to Karachi after independence of Pakistan. Ilyas Rasheedi was inspired by the Indian film magazine 'Filmfare', so he purchased a children magazine Monthly Nigar from his friend Ibne Hassan Nigar, and publish it as Pakistan's first ever film weekly from Karachi.
The first award distribution ceremony was held on July 17th, 1958 at Lahore's Evernew Studios. The first Nigar award was given for the best movie Saath lakh, for the best director W.Z. Ahmed for the film Waada, for the best actor Santosh Kumar and for the best actress Sabiha Khanam.
The male artist who has received the highest number of Nigar awards is Nadeem, who had started his career in Chakori (1967), got his first award for the same movie as the best actor. The female artist who has received the highest number of Nigar awards is Shabnam, who had started her career in Urdu films in Akhri station (1965), got her first award for the same movie as the best supporting actress. The Melody Queen Noor Jahan got a total of 13 Nigar awards in her career. It is very interesting to note that she got her first Nigar Award for the best playback singer in 1960, after 3 years the awards started.
Arrangements
Instead of the usual practice of envelope opening, the award committee prints the names of the winners on the back of the invitation cards that are sent to all invitees. This removes the charm of the suspenseful moments to the attendees.
Despite of this, the award committee has strict rules of only considering the candidacy of those films and television shows that are nominated for the awards and their copies are provided by the film makers or distributors to the committee.
The awards are also known for their impartial assessment and unbiased attitude as compared with other high-level awards for the media. Another prominent factor of the awards is that, over the time, various categories from both television and film industry that have been included to cover such subsets as the Urdu, Punjabi and Pushto language films.