Prof Talat Ahmad was confirmed appointed as Vice Chancellor (VC) of Kashmir University (KU), for the second time. Talat served as VC of KU between 2012 and 2014. Interestingly, six months before his tenure was due to expire he was given an extension of three-years, which he didn’t take as he was appointed as VC of Jamia Millia Islamia for next five years. Now with his term as VC of Jamia Millia Islamia ending in the middle of 2019, he was called back to head KU.
Apparently, the hunt for new KU Vice Chancellor began in October 2017, after the three-year tenure of incumbent VC Prof Khurshid Iqbal Andrabi ended.
Talat is an Indian Earth Scientist and Professor at the Department of Geology, University of Delhi. Before he was appointed as VC of KU in 2012, he was teaching Geology at the University of Delhi. Talat was born and brought up in a small town of Giridih, Jharkhand.
Talat Ahmad did his schooling from Giridih Higher Secondary School. In 1977, Talat joined Aligarh Muslim University to pursue MSc in Geology. He completed M Phil in Ore Petrology from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1980 and in 1985, he completed his PhD in Igneous Petrology from JNU.
He did a Post Doctoral Fellowship with University of Leicester during 1988–89 under a Government of India Fellowship and another from University of Cambridge under Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) during 1997–98.[10] In 1999–2000, he did another Post Doctoral Fellowship under Japanese Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) with Nagoya University, Japan. In 2003, Talat joined Department of Geology, University of Delhi as Professor and it was there he started a project in central India and Rajasthan, in addition to his research work in the Himalayas. After he was appointed as VC of KU, he got another project from Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR). Talat has over 65 national and international research publications to his credit.
In 2012, Talat became the second Vice-Chancellor of the University of Kashmir to be appointed from outside Kashmir in the past two decades. Jalees Ahmad Khan Tareen was the first non Kashmiri VC of KU. He served between 2001 and 2004. During his last term as VC of KU, Talat was criticised for “dumping” KU when he got an offer from Jamia. In 2014, after he left KU, Talat’s son’s marriage came in media focus. It was reported that for his son’s marriage KU put its men and machinery at his disposal, including official cars. The part of anger against him came after he “abandoned” KU for a position as VC at Jamia.
– Tahir Bhat
