Osmania University is named
after its founder, Nawab Osman
Ali Khan, the seventh Nizam of
Hyderabad who rather through a
farman or Royal Charter,
brought the University into
existence in 1918. It is the seventh oldest in the
Country and third oldest in South
India. Though the need for
the University for the Hyderabad
State was felt, both by the intelligentia and the people for a
long time, the initiative came
from a civil servant, Sir Akbar
Hydari, who was then the Home
Secretary to the State Government.
Sir Hydari, in a memorandum to the
Education Minister in Early 1917,
emphasized the need to establish a
University of Hyderabad with
'Urdu' as the medium of
instruction "as it is the language
of the widest currency in India,
official language of the State,
and it is a language which is
understood by a vast majority of
the population of the State." He
believed that higher education
must have its foundations deep in
national consciousness.