Mohammad Yunus

Mohammad Yunus Khan (26 June 1916 – 17 June 2001) was a member of Indian Foreign Service. He served as ambassador to Turkey, Indonesia, Iraq, and Spain. He promoted trade between India and the rest of the world through regular trade fairs and the establishment of exhibition complex at Pragati Maidan in Delhi. He also headed erstwhile Trade Fair Authority of India (TFAI) which is now rebranded as India Trade Promotion Organization. The Government of India awarded him the civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan.

Personal details Yunus was born on 26 June 1916 in the city of Abbottabad, North-West Frontier Province, surrounded by family and friends.

Independence movement Yunus was a follower of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, with whom he worked from 1936 to August 1947 as a Khudai Khidmatgar.

Adil Shahryar Yunus's son, Adil Shahryar, was a childhood friend of Rajiv Gandhi and his brother, Sanjay Gandhi. It is alleged that Rajiv Gandhi secured his release through a presidential pardon from Ronald Reagan from a U.S. prison in the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster as a quid pro quo for releasing Warren Anderson from Indian custody at that time. Adil Shahryar was serving a 35-year federal prison sentence for drug trafficking, wire fraud, and firearms violations.

Except for the time his name was allegedly involved in the Fairfax Affair during the VP Singh regime, which concerned an alleged bribe to an American investigative agency to keep Rajiv Gandhi's name out of its findings from IRS investigations of graft, Adil Shahryar lived a quiet life thereafter and died in 1990.

Literary works The first book written by Yunus was titled Frontier Speakers, with a foreword by Jawaharlal Nehru and a preface by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. It was banned by the British government in 1942. He then wrote "Kaidi ke Khat", in Urdu, later translated into English and Hindi, and finally his memoirs, Persons, Passions and Politics published in November 1979.