During the ceremony, which was held at the local Coco Palm restaurant on Friday, the new JMIAA officials also pledged to serve the community by uniting and engaging the alumni in diverse programs and projects.
The new office bearers hoped they would attract and encourage alumni of all ages and regions to get involved in the social service for a common cause.
Shafatullah Khan, chief election commissioner, announced the names of the new officials in the ceremony attended by some 200 guests.
A senior alumnus, Khursheed Anwar, was inducted as the new JMIAA president and Syed Aftab Ali Nizami was declared vice president, while Zafar Bari was introduced as the new general secretary.
Khan said that Naushad Alam had been elected joint secretary and Abdur Rahman Abdul Hannan would be the new treasurer.
Khan also thanked his fellow election commissioners for their support in making the poll successful. Speaking on this occasion, new JMIAA president Anwar said, “The association shall focus on the welfare of the old university alumni in particular and the Indian community in general.”
Spelling out his future plans, Anwar said that the JMIAA website would be improved and made more interactive.
“JMIAA would also help those parents who are unable to pay the school fees of their children,” he said.
“The JMIAA will hold new social, academic and cultural programs to raise the organization’s profile,” said Nizami, the new vice president, while thanking the audience. He promised to produce and distribute the new JMIAA directory within a short span of time.
“One of the mandates of JMIAA will be to ensure that the alumni find better jobs in the Kingdom,” said General Secretary Bari, adding that they would organize special programs for training and development skills for the members.
He pointed out that the JMIAA would facilitate better interaction among members on the one hand and among the huge Indian diaspora on the other. “
A detailed plan will be worked out for the next two years,” said Bari, while referring to a series of events the group is planning to hold in Riyadh.
Outgoing President Murshid Kamal congratulated the new team. With his fine oratory skills, he advised the new cabinet to work for the benefit of JMIAA and assured his full support to the newly elected cabinet.
Shahabuddin anchored the proceedings, interspersing his presentation with Urdu poetry, wit and humor. Finally, the guests were served a sumptuous dinner.
The Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), whose alumni are actively engaged in social services, is a central Indian university located in south Delhi. The university, which conferred a doctorate degree on Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah during his visit to India in 2006, can boast of high academic standards and research programs today.
The university also houses the well-known “India Arab Cultural Center,” supported by Saudi Arabia and tied up with the Riyadh-based King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives (DARAH) to work together in the fields of archeology, research, translation and heritage.
The JMI has also gone the extra mile in research and development programs. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored an Indian physicist, Mohammed Sami, by including his work among the 31 Nobel citations known as the scientific document on the Nobel Prize in Physics 2011. Sami, who teaches physics at JMI, co-authored the paper on dark matter with Edmund J. Copeland and Shinji Tsujikawa at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune, India.
