Mohammad Hamid Ansari is the Chairman of the 5th Statutory National Commission for Minorities.
Hamid Ansari studied at the St. Xavier%uFFFDu0192¢â%uFFFD20AC%u0161¬â%uFFFD20AC%u017E¢s College, Kolkata and the Aligarh Muslim University and joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1961. He was Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Afganistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia,High Commission to Australia and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in the New York. He was awarded the PADMA SHRI in 1984.
Ansari has been the Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University and a Visiting Professor at the Centre for West Asian and African Studies,Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Academy for Third World Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia. He was Chairman of the Advisory Committee for Oil Diplomacy of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Co-Chairman of the India-UK Round Table and Member of the National Security Advisory Board. He has been a Distinguished Fellow of the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. He is a Trustee of the Bapu Sadbhavana and Shiksha Trust. Ansari has edited Iran Today: Twenty Years After the Islamic Revolution (Rupa, New Delhi, 2005) and has written a number of academic papers and newspaper articles on West Asian politics
