Panjab University pips IITs in new ranking

NEW DELHI: Panjab University, Chandigarh upstages Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur as India's number one university and is placed at 32nd position among Top 100 Asian universities. Overall, it has been a significant stride by Indian universities as 10 of them now features in "Times Higher Education (THE) Asia University Rankings 2014," three more than last year. In fact Indian is the most improved nation in this year's rankings by far. The 2014 rankings also feature six IITs in top 100. However, there are no Indian institutions yet to make it to the Top 10 in the Asian rankings. According to Phil Baty, editor, THE rankings, there were 20 Indian participants of which 10 made it to the top 100, "which is a good show," and "in the next rankings we are coming up in October 2014 we are expecting around 30 to 40 participants from India." Barring IIT-Kharagpur, none of the Indian universities in Top 100 were ranked in 2013 rankings. IITs still continues to be the big representatives of India in international rankings with the youngest IIT from Guwahati too making its appearance at 74th position. Not technical institutions — Jadavpur University, Aligarh Muslim University and Jawaharlal Nehru University - are also in Top 100 Asian universities. Commenting on India's performance Baty said: "We are not rewarding volume and size. We are rewarding quality. India is fifth best representing country in this ranking. And majority of these are new entrants. But India is massively under served by quality universities." Panjab University is one of the oldest Indian university established in 1882 at Lahore (now in Pakistan). In 1956 the university was relocated to Chandigarh, on a red sandstone campus designed by Swiss architect Pierre Jeanneret under the guidance of the legendary Le Corbusier. Professor A K Grover, vice-chancellor, PU, said: "PU traditionally has been a very good university. In fact what DU is trying to do now we did it in Lahore in 1920, that is the four-year-undergraduate-programme. About the rankings, there are roughly 10 universities within the same bracket. The only advantage is PU is so integrated and has the benefit of the architecture to present and earn a few points extra. The campus is so structured that a walk from any hostel to any department won't take more then seven minutes and it promotes interdisciplinary. Therefore it is easy to attract good students. We too have lot of politics in the campus, but majority of the scholars are serious academics." All the Indian universities which made it to the Top 100 are public funded universities, though there were private universities among the 20 which participated in the assessment process. While the global leaders are private universities, the Indian private institutions "could not make it to top 100 due to lack of infrastructure and research," said Baty. Japan is the number one nation with 20 representatives in the Top 100 and its University of Tokyo at the top, followed by Singapore's National University of Singapore. But China too is not far behind with 18 of its universities in the Top 100. TOI