Fatima Zakaria - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fatima Zakaria (17 February 1936 – 6 April 2021) used to be the editor of the Mumbai Times, and became the Sunday editor of The Times of India.^[1] Zakaria is also the editor of the Taj magazine of the Taj Hotels.^[2] Her office is in the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai.

She is the second widow of Rafiq Zakaria, who was an Indian politician and Islamic religious cleric.^[3]

Fatima Zakaria is the step-mother of 2 children. The eldest, Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, is an art historian and writer, living in Mumbai. The second is Mansoor Zakaria. Her full son Arshad Zakaria^[4] runs a hedge fund. Her youngest full son Fareed Zakaria is an editor of Newsweek, and host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN.

Rafiq Zakaria established The Maulana Azad Education Trust in the historic city of Aurangabad Maharashtra India. It was his Assembly Constituency from which he got elected a few times. He served as a Minister in the State cabinet. Fatima transformed educational institutions in Aurangabad to such an extent that they can be compared with the best centres of learning in Asia.

Zakaria joined the Taj Group of Hotels to establish the hotel, The Taj Residency, on the campus of The Maulana Azad Education Trust in Aurangabad. She became editor of the coffee table magazine Taj.^[2] She introduced a Hotel Management Course in alliance with a British University. She is on the board of the Indian Institute of Hotel Management Aurangabad ^[5]

Zakaria, is regarded as a secularist, however she took special care to cater to the educational needs of the Muslims.

The award Padma Shri was conferred on her by the Government of India in 2006.^[6]

Zakaria died from COVID-19 at the Kamalnayan Bajaj Hospital in Aurangabad on 6 April 2021.^[7]