Saudi Gazette report RIYADH — Ghizal Mahdi, elected president of the Jamia Millia Islamia Alumni Association JMIAA this week, has stressed the need to single-mindedly focus on the issues of Jamiites and the social and academic growth of their wards. Mahdi got 120 votes to beat Syed Aftab Ali Nizami (67 votes) in the JMIAA presidential election held on Jan. 24. All other office bearers were elected unopposed as no other nominations were filed till Jan. 17, last date of filing nominations. As such, Ghayasuddin Mohammad, Vice President; Abid Aqeel, General Secretary; Irfanul Haque Nadwi, Joint Secretary; Abdur Rahman Umri, Treasurer; were declared elected unopposed. Similarly, all the eight members of the Executive Council — Anwar Pasha, Ayaz Ahmad Siddiqi, Azmatullah Khan, Farrukh Ahmad, M. Irfan Ahmad, Dr. Naushad Ahmad, Neemu Khan and Shamim Ahmad — were also declared elected unopposed. The university rolled out a red carpet for King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, who visited the campus in 2006. The King was also conferred with Honouris Causa degree in a special convocation ceremony on Jan. 27 that year. King Abdul Aziz Bin Saud also visited the university in 1953. Jamia Millia Islamia, the premier Delhi-based university, was founded in 1920 in response to a call by Mahatma Gandhi to boycott the then British government-supported institutions. Nationalist Muslim leaders like Moulana Mohammad Ali Jouhar and Moulana Shoukat Ali were among the founding leaders of the university. Today it has 9 faculties, 39 departments and 33 research centers with nearly 18,000 students on rolls. The university has a distinction of offering education from nursery school to doctoral level. It is inching closer to the significant milestone of completing 100 years in 2020. In his acceptance speech, Mehdi said he would urge his cabinet to focus on strengthening interaction among the alumni and their families in light of the concept of Jamia community. He added: “The younger generation of Jamia alumni should be involved in decision-making process of the association and they should be given an adequate representation in the advisory committee.” Mehdi was associated with JMI's Arabic Department from 1979-1988. During that period the university had no commerce faculty. It was largely due to Mehdi's efforts that the University Grants Commission acceded to the demand to start B.Com and B.Sc (Biology) classes in JMI. Hailing from Nehtaur in the Uttar Pradesh district of Bijnore, Mehdi also studied at Rajasthan University (Jaipur), Barkatullah University (Bhopal) and University of Aden (Yemen).
