For his critical thinking, holding religious dogma up to scrutiny, advancing human progress and humanist values, noted lyricists and scenarist Javed Akhtar was honoured with Richard Dawkins Award 2020.
He is the first Indian to have been honoured with the prestigious award, and previous recipients include Bill Maher and Christopher Hitchens.
The award is named after the world-renowned biologist Richard Dawkins and it is presented to those who publicly speak about secularism, rationalism and uphold scientific truth.
The Richard Dawkins Award is an annual award that was presented by the Atheist Alliance of America up until July 2019 when it moved to the Centre for Inquiry.
It may be mentioned here that Javed Akhtar has rigorously tweeted on issues like CAA, Tablighi Jamaat, islamophobia etc.