Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the chief guest at the Aligarh Muslim University's centenary celebrations via video link on December 22, said the university official statement on Wednesday. The Prime Minister would attend the virtual function along with Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.
Extending his gratitude to the PM, AMU Vice-Chancellor Professor Tariq Mansoor said the AMU community was thankful to the PM for his acceptance to participate in the celebrations marking 100 years of the university. In the official statement released by the AMU, the V-C was quoted as saying: "The outreach of the university during this historical year would immensely help in its growth and development and placement of our students in the private and public sectors."
Appealing all the section concerned to keep the centenary programme above politics like the Republic Day, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanti, Prof Mansoor exhorted the university community to put in all efforts to make the forthcoming programmes a grand success. He sought the participation of staff members, students, alumni and AMU well-wishers.
The V-C also informed that President Ram Nath Kovind was expected to join other online centenary functions of the university."Centenary is a great landmark achievement in the history of any university. AMU and its various units, as well as Alumni Associations, have been organising various programmes attended by illustrious people from diverse fields through the virtual mode following the Government of India's guidelines to curb the spread of Covid-19 pandemic," said the VC.
The acceptance of invite for centenary celebrations by PM Modi assumes significance, as AMU has been the hub of protests and the varsity students, have been quite vocal against the majority of decisions taken by the Modi government after coming to power.
However, the AMU Students Union (AMUSU) adopted a guarded silence on the invite extended by the AMU authorities to the PM and his acceptance of it. AMUSU president Salman Imtiyaz claimed that the union would make its stand clear over an invitation to PM Modi by releasing an official statement on Thursday, December 17.
While the university was on the boil after the abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir witnessing protests on campus by the students hailing from Jammu and Kashmir, the anti-CAA stir was another flashpoint as AMU campus was one of the nerve centres of protests then. Most recently, the AMU students have extended support to the protesting farmers at Singhu and UP-Delhi border against the farm reforms. They had even visited the agitating farmers and extended help in holding 'langars' on the protest site.
It may be recalled that a controversy had broken out in March 2018, when the varsity students were up in arms against the visit of President Ramnath Kovind on campus as chief guest on university's 65th annual Convocation ceremony. The students then had opposed the visit of President Kovind saying they would not welcome anyone with the "RSS mindset".
