HRD ranks JNU, HCU among top four universities

Jawaharlal Nehru University and Hyderabad Central University, which recently faced controversies, have figured in top four rankings released by the union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD).

The JNU has been placed at third spot with weighed score of 86.46 while Hyderabad Central University is at the fourth place with a score of 85.45 in the rankings of top universities released by the HRD.

The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, has topped the chart with weighed score of 91.81 while the Institute of Chemical Technology has scored second position with a score of 87.58 in universities category.

"Designed with a transparent mechanism, the National Institutional Rankings will facilitate choice, enabling higher education stakeholders to make informed and accurate decisions," HRD Minister Smriti Irani said releasing the India Rankings 2016.

"Each year, these rankings will serve as a performance benchmark for education institutes to improve their standing in the educational arena," Irani added.

Ironically, various members of parliament from Irani's ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, in various speeches and public statements they made over last two months have described the JNU as a fortress of naxalism and anti-national activities.

However, on Monday the HRD ministry described these rankings as the country's first exercise to rank higher educational institutions based on objective, identifiable parameters.

"The rankings are arrived at after detailed analysis and validation of the data submitted by more than 3,600 higher educational institutions in the Country classified in 6 categories," the ministry said in a statement released here.

"These rankings follow an Indian approach, where academic institute will be assessed on parameters, including teaching-learning; research; collaborative practice and professional performance; graduate outcomes; placements; outreach and inclusive action and peer group perception," the ministry added.

The announcement of the rankings was made by the ministry under its National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) programme in the presence of HRD Minister Smriti Irani here on Monday.

Meanwhile, reacting to developments, the JNU has said that it will continue on its march to be the best university in the world.

"It is an exciting news to know that JNU finds place in the top echelons of Indian universities despite its broad-based nature of research and teaching. Students from diverse economic backgrounds from different parts of India should take advantage of the quality education imparted by JNU and apply in large numbers," JNU public relations officer Poonam Kudasiya said.

In the university category, other top-ranked institutes were University of Delhi (6th), Banaras Hindu University at Varanasi (7th), Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology in Kerala (8th), Birla Institute of Technology and Science at Pilani (9th), Aligarh Muslim University (10th) and Visva-Bharati University in West Bengal (11th). Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi was ranked 83rd.

IIM-Bangalore and IIT-Madras have topped the charts in the category of management and engineering institutions. The NIRF evaluated 100 higher educational institutions each in engineering, management, universities and pharmacy categories.