Award for India’s education champion for the underprivileged

Fatma Rafiq Zakaria will receive Honorary Doctorate of the University for services to education

AN award-winning writer and journalist who, for over 60 years, has helped India’s less-privileged gain access to education, is to receive an honorary award from the University of Huddersfield.

Fatma Rafiq Zakaria is to receive the award of Honorary Doctorate of the University for services to education at the University’s awards ceremonies in India for the collaborative programme with Institute of Hotel Management.

Her career has spanned many areas, most notably journalism, social work, publishing and education.  Currently, she is Chairman of the Maulana Azad Educational Trust in Aurangabad, India, which offers quality education and training to the poor, with a focus on empowering women and minorities.

She is Executive Vice-President of the Board of Governors of the Trust’s Institute of Hotel Management.  Mrs Zakaria is also President of the Maharashtra College of Arts, Science and Commerce in Mumbai and Chairman of the All India Khilafat Committee, which operates colleges of education.

In 1958, she established an institution of childcare and training for underprivileged women, offering healthcare, education and free meals.

Her time as a writer began in 1970 when Mrs Zakaria joined The Times of India, later becoming Senior Assistant Editor, covering political and cultural affairs.  She is the only Indian journalist to have interviewed by India’s Indira Ghandi and Britain’s Margaret Thatcher when they were serving prime ministers.

In 1973, she was awarded the Sarojini Naidu Integration Award for Journalism and nearly fifty years later Mrs Zakaria still writes and is currently Editor of Taj Magazine, a quarterly publication based in Mumbai of the Taj Group of Hotels.

She has played a prominent role in education and served for three years as a member of the Bombay University Senate and has been recognised by many awards and positions of responsibility in further and higher education.

She says that one of her proudest moments came in 2006 when she received the prestigious Padma Shri by the President of India for her work in education.