Country not lagging behind in quality research: Irani

Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani toady said that just because Indian higher education institutes did not figure in the global rankings, did not mean that the country was lagging behind in higher education and quality research.
Irani referred to the country's "plurality" and said that the "unique nature and temperament" of India was not taken into consideration in global rankings.
"A lot of hue and cry is raised about our higher education institutes not figuring in global ranking. The reason is not lack of high quality research work but the fact that in India a large section of research work is done in vernacular languages, whereas global rankings only consider research in English," she said.

Irani, however admitted that the "lack of awareness" among Indian researchers regarding patents and getting their research works published in international journals were among the key reasons behind the current situation.
She also said that on December 25 she would dedicate the digitised version of 29 undergraduate (UG) books to the nation. She termed the imitative as "e-UG Shala".