NIRF ranks: CU, JU among top ten varsities in India

Kolkata: The Calcutta University (CU) and Jadavpur University (JU) have made it to the list of the top ten universities across the country in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranking that was launched by the Ministry of Human Resource Development on Monday.

CU has bagged the fifth spot while JU featured in the sixth spot. In the overall ranking of institutions across the country CU has bagged the 12th spot while JU has come 13th.

CU Vice-Chancellor Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee is elated with the performance of the university that had jumped to the fifth spot from 14 last year.

"It is a result of our teamwork and our constant effort in upgradation of our academics and research.

"We have already started developing the infrastructure of having an integrated system linking all our campus," Banerjee said.

A senior university official said that they have been able to compile several research works undertaken in various campuses of the varsity under a single umbrella which contributed to the jump in ranking of the university. " Our aim is to figure at the top spot and for this we are taking new decisions to raise the academic and research standard of the varsity," Banerjee added.

JU had ranked fifth among the universities in 2017 and slipped to sixth in 2018. It remained in the sixth spot this year too. Jadavpur University Vice-Chancellor Suranjan Das said it is great news for Bengal with two of its universities figuring in top 10.

"I feel very happy because I was also associated with CU for many years," Das said.

Academicians, however, feel that several instances of student movements in JU in has contributed to its remaining in the same spot. In fact, in the span of one month in February-March students' movement had led to the gherao of senior officials of the university at least four times.

"NIRF rankings give an academic recognition to a university and help the institution to have an edge in getting foreign funds," a senior JU professor said. Two colleges in Bengal have also figured in the top ten colleges across the country. Ramkrishna Mission Vivekananda Centenary College in Rahara, North 24 Parganas has bagged the eighth spot while St. Xavier's College in Kolkata has ranked 10th.

IIT Kharagpur has bagged the 5th position in the overall ranking of institutions and has come 4th in the list of engineering institutes. Indian Institute of Management in Kolkata has bagged the third position in the category of management institutes.