Ilmi comes from a middle-class Kanpur-based Muslim family with links to the Indian National Congress political party.[4] Her father, Maulana Ishaq Ilmi, was the founder and editor of Siyasat Jadid, a Kanpur-based Urdu newspaper.
Ilmi spent 15 years in varied aspects of television news and documentary production.[3] She has been an anchor on Star News, where she hosted and produced the popular prime time news show Desh Videsh.[6]
Ilmi has been a member of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television.[7] Her film titled Post Box. 418 Siyasat Kanpur, concerning the struggle for survival of an Urdu language newspaper, was screened at the IAWRT film festival in 2011[8] and also at events such as a similar festival in Kerala.[9] She was also a co-director, with Radha Hola, of a 1996 documentary concerning the eco-feminist Vandana Shiva. This film, called Daughter of the Earth — Portrait of Vandana Shiva, has been shown by various television broadcasters, including the Discovery Channel.[10]
Political career
In 2011, Shazia Ilmi joined the anti-corruption campaign, that was being led by Anna Hazare, and became the urbane, Muslim, media-savvy face of Team Anna.[3]
After the Anna Hazare campaign ended, she joined the Aam Aadmi Party, and became a member of its National Executive.[11][12] Ilmi, along with some other AAP leaders, was briefly involved in a controversy over malpractices in fund-collection, though the allegations were never proven.[13][14] She contested the Lok Sabha elections, 2014 for the AAP from Ghaziabad but lost to V. K. Singh.[15] Having been unhappy with the party's leadership, she resigned her AAP party membership on 24 May 2014.[16]
Ilmi joined the BJP on 16 January 2015 along with IPS Officer Kiran Bedi in a felicitation ceremony at the Delhi BJP office, just before the upcoming 2015 Delhi Assembly elections.[17] She was appointed as a national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party in July 2021.[2]
In January 2017, Ilmi was appointed the additional director (non-official part-time independent) of Engineers India Ltd (EIL) from 27 March 2017 to 30 January 2020.[19][20]
