Panjab University leaves IITS behind to be rated as India’s best

NEW DELHI: It’s not the globally famous IITS but the less-known Panjab University that has emerged as India’s top university.

The London-based Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013-14 released on Wednesday places Panjab in the 226-250 ranking band, way ahead of four IITS — Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Roorkee — that are in the 351-400 band.

Panjab is a new entrant in the league table of the world’s top 400 universities. So are IIT Delhi and Kanpur. an institution near the elite top 200. Panjab receives very good scores for citation impact, which means its academics are producing research widely used and valued by the academic community around the world,” said Phil Baty, editor of the Times Higher Education, which publishes the annual rankings.

The top 200 universities get 200 are put in bands. California Institute of Technology retains top spot with Harvard and Oxford sharing second place. Thirteen indicators across five areas were taken into account, including research, teaching, knowledge transfer and international activity.

There were 21 participants from India but most of them failed to make the cut.

Panjab University vice-chancellor Prof Arun Grover said the honour didn’t come as a surprise. “Our institute is India’s fourth oldest university and has produced luminaries like [scientist] Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar and Har Govind Khorana [joint winner of the 1968 medicine Nobel].”