61 Notable alumni of University of Lucknow

Pandit Vishwambhar Dayalu Tripathi was a prominent Indian lawyer, freedom fighter, and politician. He died in 1959 after receiving a penicillin injection manufactured by Hindustan Antibiotics at Pimpri.

Anuj Sharma is an officer of the Indian Police Service. He was the 40th Kolkata Police Commissioner, having served from 19 February to 5 April 2019 and from 26 May 2019 to 7 February 2021. On 26 May 2019, Anuj Sharma was reinstated again as the Kolkata Police Commissioner replacing Dr. Rajesh Kumar.

Mahipal Shastri or Mahipal Singh Shastri Yadav was an Indian politician who served as Governor of the state of Gujarat during 1990. He died in Lucknow on 23 August 1994, at the age of 70.

Syed Afsar Madad Naqvi, was a prominent 20th-century's sculptor. He is best known for his pure realistic monumental sculptures which can be seen in many places around the country (such as Roshan Khan/Jahangir Khan Squash Complex, Fleet Club, Arts Council of Pakistan, Markaz-e-Sadaat-e-Amroha Centre, Hasan Square Karachi, Star Gate Karachi, Quaid-e-Azam International Airport, Village Restaurant, Metropol Hotel etc.). Afsar Madad...

Mohsin Zaidi was an Indian Urdu poet who used the pen name 'Mohsin'. He is best known as a writer of ghazals, who expressed new ideas with this traditional form.

Ajai Pal Singh is an Indian politician and former Member in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly. He was a MLA from Dalmau Vidhan Sabha Seat from 2007 until 2012.

Triloki Nath Madan is an anthropologist, with a Ph.D from the Australian National University (1960). He is currently Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University, and Distinguished Senior Fellow (Adjunct), Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. Of the teaching positions he held earlier, those at Lucknow and Dharwar lasted longest. He taught for...

Pramod Tandon is an India Plant Biotechnologist and academic. He is a former Professor of Botany & Vice-Chancellor of North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong and Chief Executive Officer of Biotech Park, Lucknow. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour Padma Sri in 2009, for his contributions to science.

V. P. Appukutta Poduval is an Indian independence activist and Gandhian social activist from Kerala, India. He was awarded Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2023.

Prof. Siddheshwari Prasad Chakravarti was an Indian engineer, researcher, and educator. He was known as the father of electronics and telecommunications engineering in India.

Mathura Das Mathur was an Indian politician from Rajasthan. He was born at Jodhpur and studied at Lucknow University. He joined Indian National Congress. In 1948, he became the Health and Education minister of the first government of Marwar state. He was elected to the 2nd Lok Sabha from Nagaur in 1957. He was the Home Minister in the Rajasthan...

Syed Hamid ul Hassan is a Shia scholar from Lucknow, India. He is also the current principal of Jamia Nazmia.

Kailash Vajpeyi was an Indian poet, writer, and lyricist who chiefly wrote Hindi language poems throughout his literary career. He wrote more than 28 books, including one of his publications Hawa Mein Hastakshar which translates to "signature in the air" for which he was awarded a literary honour Sahitya Akademi Award in 2009. The University of Lucknow awarded him Vachaspati...

Syed Ali Jawad Zaidi was an Indian Urdu poet, scholar, and author of over 80 books in several languages. He was also an Indian independence activist, lawyer and later a civil servant, but is best known for his work in Urdu literature.

Fakhar Zaman was the chairman of the Pakistan Academy of Letters from 11 May 2008 to 12 March 2012, when Abdul Hameed replaced him as the next appointed chairman of the body. A leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the chairman of the World Punjabi Congress, he has also been playing a notable role in politics to achieve...

Kotha Raghuramaiah was a veteran Indian politician and barrister who served as the Union Cabinet minister of Defence, Civil Aviation, Petroleum & Chemicals, Tourism and Parliamentary Affairs. He is one of the longest-serving cabinet ministers in the history of India. The Members of Parliament from the Lok sabha and Rajya Sabha participate in a friendly Cricket competition annually for the...

Zafar Ali Naqvi is an Indian politician and former Member of parliament, Lok Sabha, from Lakhimpur Kheri constituency. His political party is the Indian National Congress. He was also cabinet minister for Home and Environment in U.P. Government.

Radha Charan Gupta was an Indian historian of mathematics, specialising in the history of Indian mathematics.

Prafulla Chandra Pant is a retired Indian judge and author who served as a judge of the Supreme Court of India from 2014 to 2017. He later served as a member of the National Human Rights Commission of India from 2019 to 2021, and briefly acted as its chairperson. Prior to his appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court...

Shoaib Sultan Khan NI is one of the pioneers of rural development programmes in Pakistan. As a CSP Officer, he worked with the Government of Pakistan for 25 years, later on he served Geneva based Aga Khan Foundation for 12 years, then UNICEF and UNDP for 14 years. Since his retirement, he has been involved with the Rural Support Programmes...

Danish Azad Ansari is an Indian politician, social worker, and member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council since 2022, representing the Bhartiya Janata Party. He is serving as the Minister of State for Minority Welfare, Muslim Waqf and Hajj of the state in the Second Yogi Adityanath ministry.

Rajanala Kaleswara Rao, known mononymously by his surname as Rajanala, was an Indian actor known for his works predominantly in Telugu cinema, Telugu theatre, and a few Tamil, Kannada, and Hindi films. In a film career spanning more than four decades, Rajanala acted in more than 1400 feature films in a variety of characters. Regarded as one of the finest...

Attia Hosain was a British-Indian novelist, author, writer, broadcaster, journalist and actor. She was a woman of letters and a diasporic writer. She wrote in English although her mother tongue was Urdu. She wrote the semi-autobiographical novel Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961) and a collection of short stories titled Phoenix Fled. Her career began in England in semi-exile making...

Syed Sibtey Razi was an Indian politician belonging to the Indian National Congress who served as the governor of Assam and Jharkhand, in addition to also serving as the Deputy Home minister of India.

Anil Bhardwaj is an Indian astrophysicist. He is the director of the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), which is a unit of the Department of Space of Government of India in Ahmedabad, India.

V. Mohini Giri was an Indian community service worker and activist, who was Chairperson of the Guild of Service, a New Delhi-based social service organisation. Established in 1979, it provides advocacy for women's and children's rights for education, employment, and financial security. She founded War Widows Association, New Delhi in 1972, and was Chairperson of the National Commission for Women...

Adarsh Sein Anand was the 29th Chief Justice of India, serving from 10 October 1998 to 31 October 2001.

Sunita Kohli is an Indian interior designer, architectural restorer and furniture manufacturer. She has restored and decorated Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House Colonnade (1985–1989), the Prime Minister's Office and Hyderabad House in New Delhi.

Atul Kumar Anjaan was an Indian politician who was a senior CPI leader and national secretary of the Communist Party of India. He is the General Secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha.

Iftikhar Hussain Arif is a Pakistani poet and litterateur of Urdu. His main theme is romantic Urdu poetry and previously served as chairman of the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) and the National Language Authority.

Swami Chinmayanand is a former union minister from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. He was minister of state for internal affairs in third Vajpayee ministry. He was elected to 13th Lok Sabha from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh as a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate in 1999. He was member of 10th Lok Sabha from Badaun in 1991 and from Machhlishahr...

Yashwant Singh Parmar was an Indian politician. He was a leader of the Indian National Congress and the first Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh state. Upon the formation of the constituent assembly of India in 1946, he represented Himachal Pradesh in the constituent assembly. For his key role in the formation of the Himachal Pradesh state, from the 1940s until...

Panna Lal Punia, usually known as P. L. Punia, is an Indian politician and former Member of the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh from 2014 till 2020. He is a Dalit leader of the Indian National Congress.

Supriya Sahu, born on 27 July 1968, is an Indian bureaucrat belonging to the 1991 batch of the Indian Administrative Service. She is also a recipient of UNEP's 2025 Champions of the Earth Award, the highest environmental honour of the United Nations. Presently, she holds the position of Additional Chief Secretary to the Government of Tamil Nadu and currently heads...

Vikram Nath is a judge of the Supreme Court of India. He is a former chief justice of the Gujarat High Court and former judge of the Allahabad High Court. He was earlier recommended as chief justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court but the centre disapproved the recommendation. He is the first chief justice of a High Court in...

Krishna Chandra Pant was a Member of Parliament for 26 years and was the prime minister's interlocutor on Kashmir. He was a cabinet minister in the Government of India and held several constitutional positions over a period of 37 years. Pant had held the positions of Minister for Defence, Minister of state for Home Affairs, Minister of Steel and Heavy...

Begum Ra'ana Liaqat Ali Khan was the First Lady of Pakistan from 1947 to 1951 as the wife of Liaquat Ali Khan who served as the 1st Prime Minister of Pakistan. She was also the first female governor in Pakistan, serving Sindh. She was one of the leading woman figures in the Pakistan Movement, and a career economist, and prominent...

Kavi Pradeep, was an Indian poet and songwriter who is best known for his patriotic song "Aye Mere Watan Ke Logo" written as a tribute to the soldiers who had died defending the country during the Sino-Indian War.

Vartika Brij Nath Singh is an Indian model and beauty pageant titleholder who was appointed as Miss Universe India 2019 and represented India at the 68th edition of the Miss Universe pageant. She was previously crowned as Femina Miss India Femina Miss India Grand International in 2015. GQ magazine ranked her among the hottest women of India in 2017.

Rajiv Kumar is an Indian economist who had served as the second vice-chairman of the NITI Aayog. He also served as the chancellor of Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune. His earlier stint in government was initially with the Ministry of Industry and subsequently in the Ministry of Finance, as economic advisor during the reform years of 1991-1994. He...

Kirti Vardhan Singh is an Indian politician from Uttar Pradesh. He is currently serving as a Minister of State for External Affairs in the Third Modi Government and Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha for the Gonda constituency for 5th time. He is locally known by the alias Raja Bhaiya, being connected with erstwhile Taluqdari of Mankapur.

Suresh Kumar Khanna is an Indian politician and a member of the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th Uttar Pradesh Assembly in India. Currently he is serving as Cabinet Minister for Finance, Parliamentary affairs Departments in Yogi Adityanath ministry. He represents the Shahjahanpur constituency of Uttar Pradesh and is a member of the Bharatiya Janta Party...

Swami Chinmayananda Saraswati, also known as Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda Saraswati (born Balakrishna Menon; 8 May 1916 – 3 August 1993), was a Hindu spiritual leader and a teacher. In 1953, he founded Chinmaya Mission, a worldwide nonprofit organisation, in order to spread the knowledge of Advaita Vedanta, the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and other ancient Hindu scriptures. Through the...

Harish Singh Rawat is an Indian politician who served as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand from 2014 to 2017. A five-time Member of Parliament, Rawat is a senior leader of the Indian National Congress party. As a member of 15th Lok Sabha, Rawat served as Union Minister of Water Resources in the cabinet of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from 2012...

Surjit Singh Barnala was an Indian politician who served as the 11th chief minister of Punjab state from 1985 to 1987. Following that he served as the governor of Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, lieutenant governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and a Union Minister on handling various portfolios.

Ritu Karidhal Srivastava is an Indian scientist and aerospace engineer working in the Indian Space Research Organisation. She was a Deputy Operations Director to India's Mars orbital mission, Mangalyaan. Giving tribute to her excellence in Mangalayaan mission, a Bollywood film Mission Mangal was created where Indian actress Vidya Balan did her role.

Amit Mishra is an Indian singer, songwriter, voice actor and live performer. He became more well known after the release of the song "Bulleya" sung by him from the film "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil"; for his rendition of the song he won a Filmfare Award for new music talent, Screen Award for Best Male Playback and IIFA Award for Best...

Vijaya Raje Scindia, known popularly as the Rajmata Scindia, was an Indian politician and consort of the last ruling Maharaja of Gwalior, Jiwajirao Scindia, in British Raj. In later life, she was elected repeatedly to both houses of the Indian parliament. She was one of the founding members of the Bharatiya Janata Party. William Dalrymple wrote in his 1998 book...

Suresh Raina is an Indian former international cricketer. He played for the India national team and represented Uttar Pradesh in domestic cricket. He was an aggressive left-handed middle-order batsman and who occasionally bowled right-arm off-spin. Raina is the first Indian batsman to hit a century in all three formats of international cricket, and the first Indian to score a century...

Dimple Yadav is an Indian politician and the incumbent Member of Parliament from Mainpuri of Uttar Pradesh. She has earlier been a member of the Lok Sabha for two terms from Kannauj and currently serving a second term from Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency.

Arif Mohammad Khan is an Indian politician currently serving as 30th Governor of Bihar. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and previously served as Governor of Kerala from 2022 to 2025, and as a Union minister who has held several portfolios ranging from energy to civil aviation.

Naresh Trehan is an Indian cardiovascular and cardiothoracic surgeon. After graduating from King George's Medical University, Lucknow, India, he went on to practice at New York University Medical Center, Manhattan, USA from 1971 to 1988. He returned to India and started Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre. He serves as the chairman and managing director and chief cardiac surgeon of...

Belle Monappa Hegde is an Indian cardiologist, professor of medicine, and author. He was the vice chancellor of Manipal Academy of Higher Education from 1999 to 2003. He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2010 and Padma Vibhushan in 2021. He has supported homeopathy a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine and quantum healing.

Ravindra Nanda is a professor and Head of the Department of Craniofacial Sciences and Chair of the Division of Orthodontics at the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine. He is part of the founding faculty of School of Dental Medicine and has been at the University of Connecticut since 1972 where he also holds an Alumni Chair in the...

Naiyer Masud was an Indian Urdu scholar and short story writer.

Ram Niwas Mirdha was an Indian statesman, parliamentarian, and cultural administrator in post-independence India. A veteran member of the Indian National Congress, Mirdha holds the record for being longest serving speaker of the Rajasthan Assembly, from 1957 to 1967. Mirdha later elected to the Rajya Sabha and served several positions including Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, from 1977 to...

Abdul Majid Daryabadi was an influential Islamic scholar, philosopher, writer, critic, researcher, journalist, and Quranic exegete active in the Indian subcontinent during the 20th century. He was deeply concerned with modernism, comparative religion, and orientalism in India.

Shivpal Singh Yadav is an Indian politician and educationist from Uttar Pradesh. He was born in Saifai village, Etawah district, and is a younger brother of Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and uncle of the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav. He is a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly, representing the Jaswantnagar seat in Etawah...

Malini Awasthi is an Indian singer, who has been called the Folk Queen of India. Having been trained classically, she is equally adept in various forms of Hindustani music like vintage Dadra, Thumri, Kajri Chaiti, etc. Her knowledge of music finds a reflection in her renditions of Ghazals and Sufiyaana Kalaam too. A Ganda-baandh disciple of Padma Vibhushan Vidushi Girija...

Ajit Singh was an Indian politician, farmer leader, and founder of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), a regional political party rooted in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, dedicated to advocating farmers’ rights and rural interests. Singh entered the Rajya Sabha in 1986 and later represented Baghpat in the Lok Sabha across seven terms between 1989 and 2014, navigating multiple party affiliations...