Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief guest at the virtual centenary celebrations of Aligarh Muslim University on Tuesday, where also addressed the centenary celebrations of the university, via video conferencing. This was the first time in 56 years that an Indian prime minister attended an event at the AMU. According to a university official, PM Modi also released a special postal stamp to mark the occasion.
Chancellor of the University Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin and Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank also joined the event via video conferencing.
Extending gratitude to Modi, AMU Vice Chancellor Tariq Mansoor said the AMU community is thankful to the PM for accepting the invitation to participate in the celebrations marking 100 years of the university.
"A centenary celebration is a landmark event in the history of any university. We are celebrating this event following all protocols of the COVID-19 pandemic. There are webinars, seminars and symposiums going on," AMU Public Relations Officer (PRO) Omar Saleem Peerzada said.
The last time a PM attended an event at AMU was Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1964.
Before him, prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had visited AMU four times. He visited AMU for the first time in 1948, when an honorary doctorate was conferred on him at the annual convocation, followed by visits in 1955, 1960 and 1963.
AMU became a University in 1920, through an Act of the Indian Legislative Council by elevating the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College to the status of a Central University. MAO College was set up in 1877 by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, a PMO release stated.
The University has a campus spread over 467.6 hectares of land in the city of Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. It also has three off-campus centers in Malappuram (Kerala), Murshidabad-Jangipur (West Bengal) and Kishanganj (Bihar).
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