Jamia Millia Islamia making Waves for its Extraordinary Feats

New Delhi: The historic institution Jamia Millia Islamia has not only attained national but international accolades. It has been ranked at 186th position in the recently announced QS Asia University Rankings 2022 by the London-based QS University Rankings Agency, improving its position from 203 last year.
Earlier along with Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia made it to the top ten Universities list in the Union Education Ministry’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) University rankings for the year 2021 in India. JMI secured the sixth rank among the top 10 Universities of the country while AMU is now ranked 10th.
Jamia is also making waves for its extraordinary scientific feats. In the centenary year 2020, Prof. Imran Ali of the Department of Chemistry has been selected as the number one scientist in India and 24th in Analytical Chemistry by a group of scientists from the University of Stanford, USA.
One more feather was added to Jamia’s adorned cap recently. The prestigious Stanford University of the US has included 16 researchers from Jamia in the top 2 percent of scientists of the world. The global list was prepared by a team of experts led by John Ioannidis, an eminent professor at Stanford University, and was published by the Elsevier journal. A total of 3,352 researchers from India got featured in the list prepared by the university.
Stanford University has released two lists. The first coveted list is based on career-long data, and eight professors from JMI got enlisted in it. The second list is based on 2020 performance, and 16 scientists from the institution got featured in this list.
According to an official statement on JMI website, apart from Prof. Imran, professors Atiqur Rehman, Anjan A. Sen, Haseeb Ahsan, Sushant G. Ghosh, S. Ahmad, Tokeer Ahmad and Dr Mohd Imtaiyaz have been included in both the coveted lists, while in the 2020 list of top 2 per cent scientists, professors Abid Haleem, Rafiq Ahmad, Tabrez Alam Khan, Mohd Javaid, Arshad Noor Siddique, Musheer Ahmad, Faizan Ahmad and Tarikul Islam have been included.
Apart from this galaxy, two other gems that have made Jamia proud and have set glorious examples for younger generations to emulate are Dr. Mansaf Alam of the Computer Science Department and Professor Shakeel Ahmad. They served as MK Gandhi Chair in the Department of Geography.
Dr. Mansaf Alam
Dr Mansaf Alam and his team have developed an ‘Artificial Intelligence Based Dustbin.’ This invention has received a patent as intellectual property from the Patent Office, Government of Australia.
The main objective of the invention titled ‘Artificial Intelligence Based Dustbin,’ according to Dr. Alam, is to make dustbins smart by enabling them to detect harmful objects like explosives and radioactive materials thrown in them.
“Sensors are fixed with the dustbin, which will intimate by sending signals about any harmful objects dumped in it. We developed this dustbin keeping in mind the security aspect, making the dustbin behave like human beings and work intelligently with the help of AI. It will surely be a useful product for society,” said Dr. Alam.
Professor Shakeel Ahmad
Professor Shakeel Ahmad has been elected as a Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (Italy) to advance science in a developing country.
The academy supports sustainable prosperity through research, education, policy, and diplomacy.
According to the information provided by JMI, Professor Ahmed is an expert in water sciences and taught at the Centre for Disaster Management as well as the Department of Geography during his two-year tenure at JMI.
“He has rich experience in teaching advanced development in water-related natural disasters as well as climate change,” a statement on the JMI website said.
As a senior faculty member, Professor Ahmed’s contribution to JMI has been extraordinary. He has published more than 13 research papers in high-impact international journals and contributed three chapters in books published by INSA and Springer, and Elsevier.
During his tenure at JMI, he was also elected as the Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences of India (NASI).
Before joining JMI, he served as a scientist at the CSIR’s National Geophysical Research Institute in Hyderabad for 37 years. He reached the level of the senior-most Chief Scientist at the institute. He has led many national and international projects on earth science, including his major role in the mega programme of National Aquifer Mapping in India.
As its founder head, Professor Ahmed has led an Indo-French Centre for Groundwater Research in Hyderabad for almost 20 years.
Professor Ahmed will be leading a high level delegation from India with Professor Atiqur Rahman of the Department of Geography, JMI, and many other scientists and experts from the country to Montpellier, France, to discuss with a matching French delegation the impact of climate change on water management in May, 2022.
The Jamia also won Boston University’s Global Programs BUFI (2020) Seed Fund award for collaborative research proposal. This collaborative project is entitled ‘Networks and Global health: Experimental Evidence of Women’s Social Networks, Reproductive Health, and Well-being in Rural India’.
Jamia also published 911 papers in journals that are indexed in a globally accepted SCOPUS database. For 2019, until April 20, we have already published 317 papers and expected to cross 1000 papers per year, which will enable us to achieve a per capita publication of over 1.40, Jamia media coordinator, Ahmad Azeem told Islamic Voice.
Jamia Millia Islamia was originally established at Aligarh in United Provinces, India, in 1920 became a Central University by an act of the Indian Parliament in 1988. In the Urdu language, Jamia means ‘University, and Millia means ‘National’.
In recent years Jamia has made significant strides. It got NAAC Accreditation with Grade ‘A’ in March 2015. The MHRD’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) placed it at the 19th position in the “Overall Ranking” for 2018 & 2019. In the Times Higher Education (THE) ranking for the year 2019, 2020 Jamia was placed in-between 601-800 and in the QS World University Rankings 2020 it was placed in-between 751-800. Round University Ranking in collaboration with Clarivate Analytics have ranked at 538 among 1100 universities participating in World University ranking 2020.
The story of its growth from a small institution in pre-independence India to a central university located in New Delhi offering integrated education from nursery to research in specialized areas is a saga of dedication, conviction and vision of a people who worked against all odds and saw it growing step by step. They “built up the Jamia Millia stone by stone and sacrifice by sacrifice,” said Sarojini Naidu, the nightingale of India.