Muslim Sanskrit scholar made minority panel member

The Narendra Modi government has appointed Muslim Sanskrit scholar Naheed Abidi as the member of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI). Baltej Singh Mann, a retired professor and an economist who held several academic positions and taught at the Punjabi university in Patiala, is another member of the statutory body appointed by the Centre.

With these two appointments, the Centre has filled the vacancies of members in the council. The NCMEI, however, continues to remain headless as the government is yet to fill up the post of chairman which fell vacant with the completion of Justice (retd) MSA Siddiqui’s five-year term in December last year.

Both Abidi and Mann have been appointed NCMEI members for a five-year term, according to a notification issued by the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry.

Abidi, a Padma Shri who hails from Modi’s parliamentary constituency Varanasi, was made member of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) by the Modi government last year. Her husband Ethesham Abidi, a lawyer, is already a member of the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Languages.