CU to confer honorary D Litt on Abhijit Banerjee on Jan 28

Kolkata: The Calcutta University (CU) will confer honorary D Litt (honoris causa) on Nobel laureate Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee at its annual convocation scheduled on January 28 next year.

"The senate has unanimously agreed to confer honorary D Litt to Abhijit Banerjee," said Vice-Chancellor Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee on Tuesday.

A senior official of the university said that CU had decided the date after intimating the Higher Education department 10 days ago as per the new law passed in state Assembly earlier this month.

The law states clearly that any academic decision to be taken by the highest decision making bodies of state universities should be communicated to the Higher Education department. The university will also confer Sir Asutosh Mookerjee Memorial Medal, Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray Medal, The Rabindra Nath Tagore Memorial Medal, Swami Vivekananda Medal, Sarojini Basu medal and several other medals at the convocation.

The list of the recipients was finalised on Tuesday's senate. Apart from these, Eminent Teacher Award will be conferred upon six professors.

However, the university has not yet finalised the names of those who will be gracing the occasion as guests of honour. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was present at the CU convocation this year.

On being questioned whether Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, who is the chancellor of the varsity, will be invited to preside over the convocation, a senior CU official said that the university statute has a separate chapter on convocation where the way of organising the same has been stated clearly. "We will strictly adhere to our statute and hold the 2020 convocation," the official said.

(Image from telegraphindia.com)