Calcutta University to confer honorary D Litt on Abhijit Banerjee

"Everything will be decided according to the university statute.", the VC said on a question if WB Governor will attend the convocation

The Calcutta University will confer the honorary D Litt (honoris causa) on Nobel laureate Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee at its annual convocation which will be held on January 28 next year.

Vice-Chancellor Sonali Chakraborty Banerjee told a press meet here on Tuesday, that the senate, the highest decision making body of the institute unanimously cleared the proposal to confer honorary D Litt on the 2019 Nobel prize winner in Economics.

To a question, if West Bengal Governor and University Chancellor Jagdeep Dhankhar will be invited to preside over the convocation, which is usually attended by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the VC evaded a direct reply saying, "Everything will be decided according to the university statute."

However, she did not elaborate on the statute.

To another question, she said the CU decided the date of the senate meeting after intimating the Higher Education department 10-days back as per the new law passed in West Bengal Assembly earlier this month.

The new law stated that any academic decision to be taken by the highest decision making bodies of state universities are to be communicated to the Higher Education department.

The university will confer Sir Asutosh Mookerjee Memorial Medal to eminent astrophysicist J V Narlikar on the occasion.

Scientists Samir K Brahmachari, Arup Kumar Raychaudhuri and Partha Pratim Majumder will be conferred with the Sir Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray Medal.

The Rabindranath Tagore Memorial Medal will be awarded posthumously to poet Aurobindo Guha, and writer-activist Manoranjan Byapari.