Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 6 (IANS) A glittering combination of achievers in public service, industry and arts have been appointed to St Stephen’s College alumni executive to help it ramp up its infrastructure and meet its target of becoming a world-class institution by 2050.

At a well-attended meeting convened in the college late Sunday, Ved Marwah, former governor of Manipur and Jharkhand, was re-nominated president of the body by patron and principal Rev Valson Thampu. Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi will be the vice president.

“The alumni reviewed the ground-level improvements under way in the college library, science blocks, junior, ladies and senior combination rooms, internet resource centre and science dhaba. We decided to register the alumni association in an appropriate manner,” Marwah told IANS.

Marwah said the new executive’s main mission was to galvanise the alumni to first understand the developmental efforts now on and then to implement the master plan based on Vision 2050 approved by the governing body.

As part of its master plan, St. Stephens aspires to achieve a deemed university status by 2025 or at least by 2050, increase intake in key streams, upgrade infrastructure and offer a wide array of courses.

“We will reach out to alumni across the world to share the master plan and Vision 2050 encompassing hard and soft infrastructure that the college must have to maintain and consolidate its unmatched and growing relevance to national life,” said Quraishi.

Some of the other members of the alumni body are Perfect Relations co-founder Bobby Kewalramani (Secretary), senior civil servant Vijay Chhibber (Treasurer) and Hammurabi and Solomon Consulting LLP Chief Executive Officer Rohit Bansal (media advisor).

The revamped national executive to guide alumni affairs also includes Delhi Lokayukta Manmohan Sarin, Delhi High Court judge Sanjay Kishen Kaul, Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar, Pioneer editor Chandan Mitra, Naukri.com founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani and Amitabh Kant, chief executive of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Corp.

Thampu, only the third alumni to be principal of the college, emphasised the supreme significance of the role of alumni and their participation in the life of the college.

Nineteen MPs in today’s parliament are from the college, including ministers Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid, Virbhadra Singh and Sachin Pilot.

Others from the college include Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, incoming cabinet secretary Ajit Kumar Seth, Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu, authors Khushwant Singh and Amitabh Ghosh, industrialist Rahul Bajaj and Delhi University Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh.

(James Jose can be contacted at james.jose@ians.in)