MJ Akbar is an Indian politician. MJ Akbar started his career as a journalist. However, he eventually became a politician. Apart from the Indian National Congress, he has also been a prominent figure in the Bharatiya Janata Party. Not only in India, he has also served abroad as an important bureaucrat.
Biography/Wiki
MJ Akbar or Mobashar Javed Akbar was born on 11 January 1951 in a Bihari family. According to his book, Blood Brothers – A Family Saga, Akbar’s grandfather was a Hindu, named Prayag. Who lived in Telinipara, a small town near Chandannagar in West Bengal. His grandfather, Prayag, was orphaned in a communal riot and was brought up by a Muslim couple. Later he converted to Islam and his name became Rahmatullah.
Old picture of MJ Akbar
Family
MJ Akbar was born to Mr. Sheikh Akbar Ali and Mrs. Imtiaz Akbar in a Muslim family in Telinipara, West Bengal. He has only one sibling, his sister, Ghazala Akbar Sharma.
In 1975, he married Mallika Joseph Akbar, his fellow journalist at The Times of India. The couple have a son, Prayag Jawad Akbar, and a daughter, Mukulika, who studied law from Jesus College, Cambridge University, England.
Prayag Akbar, son of MJ Akbar
livelihood
Akbar studied at Calcutta Boys’ School and later, he joined Presidency College, Calcutta in 1967 where he studied BA (Hons) in English. In 1971, he joined “The Times of India” as an intern. After some time, he moved to The Illustrated Weekly of India and remained there till 1973. In 1976, he joined the Anand Bazaar Patrika (ABP) group as editor of The Sunday Weekly. After the success of The Sunday, he launched India’s first modern newspaper, The Telegraph.
Old picture of MJ Akbar
In 1989, he tried his hand in politics for the first time and successfully contested the Indian general election from Kishanganj constituency in Bihar on the Indian National Congress ticket. However, he lost his seat in the 1991 Indian general election. In 1991 he joined the Ministry of Human Resources of the Government of India as a consultant. In 1992, he resigned from office, left politics and returned to full-time journalism. In 1994, he launched another newspaper, The Asian Age. In 2005, he was appointed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia as a member of the committee to draft a ten-year charter for Muslim countries on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
MJ Akbar in conversation with senior UAE minister
In 2006, he joined the Brookings Project on United States Policy toward the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution in Washington as a visiting fellow. In 2014, Akbar joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the party’s national spokesperson. In July 2015, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand. On 5 July 2016, he was sworn in as Minister of State for External Affairs.
MJ Akbar taking oath
controversies
- In October 2018, several women accused Akbar of sexual harassment, with a journalist named Priya Ramani alleging that he had groped her in a hotel room when he was editor of a newspaper, The Asian Age. In his allegation he said that he was made to feel uncomfortable.
- Another journalist Ghazala Wahab has also accused him of sexual harassment. According to Ghazala Wahab, “He called me to his cabin.” I knocked and entered. He was standing near the door and before I could react, he closed the door and trapped me between his body and the door. I instinctively blushed and he caught hold of me and leaned in to kiss me. My mouth was closed and I was struggling to turn my face to one side.” On 17 October 2018, he resigned from the post of Union Minister of State for External Affairs; As a result of various sexual harassment allegations against him.
Ghazala Wahab had accused Akbar of sexual harassment
Salary/Net Worth
He receives ₹50,000/month as salary and ₹45,000/month as constituency allowance. He has jewelery assets worth more than Rs 38 lakh. In 2016, his net worth is more than ₹36 crore.
interesting fact
- In 1990, he published his first book, Nehru: The Making of India.
MJ Akbar wrote Nehru: The Making of India
- Akbar was the spokesperson of late former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi.
- He has also served as the editor-in-chief of the Hyderabad-based newspaper “The Deccan Chronicle”.
- He has written more than 10 books so far.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn