New Delhi: Senior advocate Ujjwal Nikam, former international secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, social employee C.Sadanandan Grasp and historian Meenakshi Jain had been nominated by President Droupadi Murmu to the Rajya Sabha.
The nominations have been made to fill vacancies created by the retirement of earlier nominated members.
The President can nominate as much as 12 members from the fields of literature, science, artwork and social service to the Higher Home of Parliament.
The choice of Nikam was lengthy due as he labored in high-profile instances such because the Gulshan Kumar homicide, the Shakti Mill gang rape, the Marine Drive rape, the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, and the 26/11 terror assault.
The particular public prosecutor was routinely within the information through the trial of Akmal Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist arrested through the 2008 terror assault. He had later drawn condemnation after he revealed that Kasab had by no means demanded mutton biryani throughout his trial.
Born in North Maharashtra’s Jalgaon, he began training as a lawyer in 1979. His father was a decide however he shot to fame for the primary time when he was appointed as particular public prosecutor within the 1993 serial blasts case.
Nikam’s proximity with the BJP dispensation grew after the 26/11 case. The Narendra Modi authorities conferred the Padma Shri to him in 2016.
Final yr, the BJP dropped two-term sitting MP Poonam Mahajan from the high-profile Mumbai North Central seat and as an alternative gave the ballot ticket to Nikam. His electoral debut ended with a loss as Congress Varsha Gaikwad trounced him by a margin of 16,500-plus votes.
PM Modi hailed the nominations made by the Rashtrapati Bhavan. “Shri Ujjwal Nikam’s devotion to the authorized subject and to our Structure is exemplary. He has not solely been a profitable lawyer but additionally been on the forefront of looking for justice in essential instances. Throughout his complete authorized profession, he has all the time labored to strengthen Constitutional values and guarantee frequent residents are all the time handled with dignity,” he posted on X.
A retired Indian Overseas Service (IFS) officer, Shringla had served because the international secretary between January 2020 and April 2022. He had navigated the Indian diplomatic panorama through the Covid pandemic. Shringla was lately a part of India’s outreach to the Islamic world after Operation Sindoor following the Pahalgam terror assault.
Because the Indian ambassador to the US, Shringla was credited with Modi’s public occasion Howdy Modi in Houston and sustaining heat relationship with US President Donald Trump in his first time period.
He was later made the chief G20 coordinator for India’s G20 Presidency in 2023 and went on to assist the Modi authorities in organising the G20 Summit in New Delhi that yr.
In Shringla’s biography ’Not An Unintentional Rise,’ writer Dipmala Roka has talked about how he managed administrative and diplomatic efforts to handle the provision chain of necessities, negotiating for the sleek provide chain of medication and different necessities.
The guide additional mentions that when the Modi authorities scrapped Article 370 of the Structure in 2019, Shringla met 400 senators and traveled to 22 states within the US.
His title had come up as a BJP candidate from Darjeeling within the final yr’s basic elections, however the occasion caught with the sitting MP Raju Bista.
A former instructor and social employee of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Sadanand Grasp had unsuccessfully contested the 2016 and 2021 meeting ballot as a BJP candidate. At the moment, he’s seving because the BJP state president of the Kerala unit.
The Sangh veteran survived an assault by CPI(M) goons in 1994 however misplaced each his legs. Regardless of his state, he remained energetic in politics and the BJP introduced his case to focus on the Left’s brutality in Kerala.
“The BJP is making inroads in Kerala after the primary Lok Sabha victory (of Suresh Gopi in Thrissur), His choice is politically essential to ship a message to cadres combating towards the Left rule for the final twenty years,” a BJP functionary informed ThePrint.
Meenakshi Jain, a famend historian of medieval and colonial India, is daughter of Instances of India’s former editor Girilal Jain.
She is a former affiliate professor of Historical past at Gargi School, Delhi College, in addition to a former fellow of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, and a former member of the Governing Council of the Indian Council of Historic Analysis. Jain is at the moment a senior fellow on the Indian Council of Social Science Analysis.
Her well-researched books equivalent to ‘Flight of Deities and Rebirth of Temples’, ‘The Battle for Rama: Case of the Temple at Ayodhya, Rama and Ayodhya’, ‘Parallel Pathways: Essays on Hindu–Muslim Relations’ have handled historic problems with nationwide significance.
Jain had contributed to the Nationwide Council of Instructional Analysis and Coaching (NCERT) textbooks through the time of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Later, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance dropped her guide from the syllabus. The RSS and different Hindu Proper outfits cited her work within the authorized battle over Ayodhya.
The historian was awarded the Padma Shri in 2020.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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