1. Najma Heptulla was the Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia from 2017 to 2023, until Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin was elected as new Chancellor on 14 March 2023.
27 Facts About Najma Heptulla
1. 2.
Najma Heptulla was a six time member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, between 1980 and 2016, and Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha for sixteen years when she was a member of Congress.
3.
Najma Heptulla is a second cousin to actor Aamir Khan and grand niece of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
4.
Najma Heptulla contested the 13th vice-presidential election held in August 2007 but lost to Hamid Ansari by 233 votes.
5.
Najma Heptulla took oath as a cabinet minister in the Narendra Modi headed government on 26 May 2014 and was replaced by Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi in July 2016.
6.
Najma Heptulla is a Dawoodi Bohra Ismaili Shia Gujarati with Arab ancestry, as traced by her ancestral roots in the Arabian peninsula as well as Gujarat state.
7.
Najma Heptulla married Akbar Ali Akhtar Heptulla in 1966, and has three daughters.
8.
Najma Heptulla died on 4 September 2007, in New Delhi at the age of 75.
9.
Najma Heptulla steadily climbed up in the Indian National Congress party, heading several divisions of the party's grassroots organisations.
10.
Najma Heptulla was the General Secretary of Congress during 1986 with the additional responsibility of youth activities of the All India Congress Committee and the NSUI.
11.
Najma Heptulla was the Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha from January 1985 to January 1986 and from 1988 to July 2004.
12.
Najma Heptulla declared that she was leaving the party due to the problems with party leadership.
13.
Najma Heptulla was a member of Rajya Sabha, representing Rajasthan for BJP from July 2004 to July 2010.
14.
Najma Heptulla was nominated by the BJP for the Rajya Sabha in 2012 from Madhya Pradesh, and assumed her office on 24 April 2012 upon election.
15.
Najma Heptulla served as the Minister of Minority Affairs in Prime minister Narendra Modi's cabinet from 26 May 2014 to 12 July 2016.
16.
Najma Heptulla said that minorities needed a level playing field in Indian society, but reservation is not the solution as it kills the spirit of competition.
17.
Najma Heptulla resigned from her positions as a minister and a member of Rajya Sabha in 2016 when she was nominated Governor of Manipur.
18.
Najma Heptulla was nominated to head the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, ICCR.
19.
Najma Heptulla presided over the women parliamentarians' group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in 1993 and became founder president of the parliamentarians' forum for human development the same year.
20.
Najma Heptulla was elected President of Inter-Parliamentary Union, a Geneva-based international organisation at Council's 165th session in Berlin in 1999.
21.
Najma Heptulla held the post from 16 October 1999 to 27 September 2002.
22.
Najma Heptulla was nominated by the United Nations Development Programme as its human development ambassador.
23.
Najma Heptulla led a delegation to the UN Commission on Status of Women in 1997.
24.
Najma Heptulla has authored book on AIDS titled "AIDS: Approaches to Prevention".
25.
Najma Heptulla has written on human social security, sustainable development, environment, reforms for women and on ties between India and west Asia.
26.
Najma Heptulla faced charges of having morphed a 1958 photograph to show her along with Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in a publication of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.
27.
Najma Heptulla was the first chairperson of the ICCR and the publication came out when the council was headed by Heptulla.