Syed Akbar (born. 20 September 1965) is a senior Indian science, health and political journalist from Hyderabad. He is a specialist-journalist in science, technology, health, politics, environment, development,wildlife, religion, communities, and consumer affairs. Syed Akbar is a biologist by education and environmentalist by training. He is one of the few Indian Muslim journalists whose writings are read far and wide and held in high esteem. Most of his articles are of documentary value since they are based on research and indept investigation. He is the one of the well-recognized English science journalists from the Southern Indian State of Andhra Pradesh. Syed Akbar hails from Vijayawada and is a product of St Joseph's. He started writing to newspapers and journals at a very young age. His columns on religion, and consumer affairs in The New Indian Express (Andhra and Orissa editions) and religion and science in a Delhi-based weekly received rave reviews.- He has made a mark of his own in specialized reporting on natural calamities like cyclones, flash floods, earthquakes and Tsunami. To Syed Akbar goes the credit of making Vijayawada city greener. His sustained campaign in 1990s for breathing spaces in an otherwise hilly city like Vijayawada, forced the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation to take up greening of canal bunds and berm parks. Today the city is relatively greener with almost no encroachments on its irrigation canals that dot Vijayawada giving it a Venetian look.
- Syed Akbar's campaign on the need to protect the picturesque Chinagollapalem island in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Kruthivennu in Krishna district made the Centre and the State government sit up and chalk an ecological solution. The island has been dissolving slowly throwing hundreds of farmers and villagers into poverty.
- The Andhra Pradesh State government declared the mangroves in the estuary of the Krishna river as a wildlife sanctuary (Krishna wildlife sanctuary) following exposure that the fragile ecosystem has been on the rocks because of human intervention. The Kolleru lake (largest freshwater body in Asia) protection plan got a boost after a series of reports in 1990s highlighting the eco-death of the water body, that once spread about 1000 km2.
- He worked with the Indian Express for 10 years and shifted to Deccan Chronicle. He is currently working for The Times of India.
- Syed Akbar’s columns on religion, consumer affairs and environment in The Indian Express are well written and are of documentary value. He is one of the first few journalists to highlight the lurking dangers of ISI activities in Hyderabad and other parts of Andhra Pradesh.
- His series of contributions to Deccan Chronicle and The Asian Age during March 2007 on the problems of Andhra illegal migrant workers in UAE forced the Emirates government to introduce labour reforms and grant amnesty to lakhs of such workers. The UAE labour ministry has come out with a special amnesty that ended in October 2007.[1]
The Andhra Pradesh government too tighened rules to prevent cheating of gullible unemployed from rural areas of Telangana region. A special NRI cell was set up and the State government rehabilitated those who returned from the Gulf availing themselves of the amnesty[2].
Syed Akbar is known for his secular and unbiased writings on otherwise controversial issues. His writings reflect secularism, nationalism and commitment to society. He has received scholarships including by foreign organisations. The Sri Lanka government, during August 2007, honoured him during the 8th international conference on AIDS in Asia and The Pacific, at Colombo, Sri Lanka. He participated in several international meetings on health, science and research. He visited many countries on scholarships offered by international organisations. Recently, he was awarded fellowship by the scholarships committee of the ICAAP9, Bali, Indonesia.
