New Delhi, May 14 (Inditop.com) Mushirul Hasan, a serving professor and former vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, has been appointed as the director-general of the National Archives of India.
Hasan, educated in Aligarh Muslim University and Cambridge University, has been a professor in Jamia Milia Islamia since 1981. Besides teaching and holding numerous responsibilities at Jamia, he has also served as the vice chairman of Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla and as visiting professor to several universities.
“It is an onerous responsibility that I have been entrusted with. It is almost like returning home because I started my research work after my post-graduation in the early seventies. This is the place, where one has to come to research,” Hasan told IANS.
He said the “archive was a national treasure and had to be preserved”.
“My job will to make it more accessible through better service. It serves three important purpose – preservation, conservation and accessibility,” said Hasan, a Padma Shri recipient and author of many important books on Indian history.
The National Archives of India is the repository of the non-current records of the Indian government, which holds them in a trust for the use of administrators and scholars. It is attached to the ministry of culture.
The archives were set up in March 1861 in then Calcutta (Kolkata) as the Imperial Record Department and subsequent to the transfer of the national capital to New Delhi, it was relocated to its current premises in 1926.
