Hindustan Times (Lucknow)

24 more pvt, govt institutes up for ‘eminence’ tag

- Amandeep Shukla letters@hindustant­imes.com

NEW DELHI: A committee of experts headed by former chief election commission­er N Gopalaswam­i has recommende­d the coveted ‘Institute of Eminence’ tag for 12 private institutio­ns and as many government ones as part of an ambitious government plan under which they will be nurtured into world class centres of education.

Krea University (Sri City), Shiv Nadar University (Dadri) and Vellore Institute of Technology (Vellore) are among the private institutio­ns chosen by the committee,

which also picked Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras, Delhi University, Jadavpur University and Banaras Hindu University

(BHU) among the publicly funded institutio­ns.

The Narendra Modi government tasked the fourmember panel headed by Goplaswami to select 20 ‘institutes of eminence’ as part of the initiative to build world class educationa­l centres.

The panel, on whose recommenda­tion three government and three private institutes had been selected, came up with its second list on Friday and suggested a new category of outstandin­g sectoral institutio­ns.

As part of the new special list, it zeroed in on the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM)-Ahmedabad and Kolkata, for outstandin­g sectoral institutio­ns in management studies.

Delhi’s Indian Council of Agricultur­al Research (ICAR) and Punjab Agricultur­e University (PAU), Ludhiana, were selected in the field of agricultur­al studies.

The Gopalaswam­i committee suggested that they be given a special tag, say ‘institutio­ns of excellence’ or a similar tag, in recognitio­n of their stellar performanc­e in these sectors, an official in the ministry of human resource developmen­t said on condition of anonymity. The panel also named the Indian Statistica­l Institute (ISI) in Kolkata, the Tata Institute of Fundamenta­l Research (TIFR), Mumbai, and the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, as outstandin­g sectoral institutio­ns in this new list.

“It was on the basis of this committee’s recommenda­tions that 3 public and 3 private institutio­ns were chosen for the institute of eminence tag earlier. Today, the panel has given a list of an additional 12 names for public and an equal number in the private category to be selected as institutes of eminence,” the official cited above said on condition of anonymity.

IIT-Madras, IIT-Kharagpur, Delhi University, Jadavpur University, Anna University, BHU, Tezpur University, Aligarh Muslim University, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Punjab University, Andhra University and the University of Hyderabad were the 12 picked for the ‘Institutio­n of Eminence’ tag in the public sector. Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru; and the IITs in Mumbai and Delhi had earlier been selected for the tag.

Among private institutio­ns, the remaining nine the panel chose were Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeeth­am, Bengaluru; Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi; Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswa­r; Azim Premji University, Bengaluru ; the Indian Institute for Human Settlement­s, Bengaluru; Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinaga­r; Ashoka University, Sonipat; OP Jindal University, Sonipat; and the Satya Bharati University in Haryana.

“In the report submitted today, the panel has explained the reasons for choosing the institutio­ns. It has looked at their management­s, research and also the financial resources while making its recommenda­tions,” another official said.

The panel, apart from Gopalaswam­i, included management guru Pritam Singh, Renu Khator of the University of Houston and Tarun Khanna of Harvard University.

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