AGRA: The Aligarh Muslim University(AMU) on Tuesday celebrated the 206th birth anniversary of its founder, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan,.Justice Attau Rahman Masoodi, a senior judge of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow bench), was the chief guest at the commemorative function held at the Gulistan-e-Syed."The journey that an institution begins with, may be a journey of an individual institution but the direction of the journey must be towards a collective goal because it is not the beginning that determines the success or a failure, but it is the objective that tends to determine it," he said addressing the students and faculty members.Justice Masoodi remarked that the opening words of the Preamble of the Indian Constitution call upon the people of India to shed the self-attributing notions denoted by I and move towards the goals set by and for the "we". "Today it is important to gauge the fact that whether every one of us as individuals or institutions can become part of a large collective self," he added Justice Masoodi, while remembering his 1985 visit to AMU as an admission candidate, said it was a big impetus for him to choose law as a career and attributed his success to his short stay at the AMU campus where he got the best advice and hospitality from senior students. The guest of honour, retired IAS officer and former vice chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, Syed Shahid Mahdi, who is also an AMU alumnus, denounced the allegations of Sir Syed being a creator of the two-nation theory. Another guest of honour and founder of Rekhta foundation, Sanjiv Saraf, said that Aligarh and Urdu are synonymous to him, and when he first thought of working for the promotion of Urdu language and literature, it was Aligarh that came to his mind as a center of the best and most resources to rely upon. He stated that Aligarhs hallowed columns tell stories of many Urdu poets and writers, and many Urdu masterpieces have originated from this place. Saraf pointed out that progressive poetry had already begun in Aligarh, much before the launch of the progressive movement, and it was in fact Sir Syeds efforts with the Urdu prose that the seeds of purposeful poetry germinated in his time. In his presidential remarks, vice chancellor Mohammad Gulrez congratulated the AMU fraternity all over the world on the occasion, adding that this day is a day of celebration of a man, his vision, his resolve, his commitment, his efforts and his contributions. He said that the university has made a big stride in implementing the National Education Policy 2020 and introduced some new programmes to make the learning process more innovative and industry-oriented.

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