Presidency Univ to celebrate 204th Founders' Day online

Kolkata: Presidency University will celebrate its 204th Founders' Day on January 20 virtually, abiding by the norms of physical distancing.

The Atul Chandra Gupta Distinguished Alumnus award for 2021 will be conferred on Professor Partha Chatterjee, who will deliver the Founder's Day lecture. Professor Chatterjee, who is from the 1964-67 batch, is a renowned political scientist and anthropologist. He will be introduced by another alumnus and former Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, Sugata Marjit.

Present students, faculty, university officers and the staff along with former students of Presidency across the globe will log in to the virtual platform at 7 pm on that day.

The annual Autumn Journal edited by alumnus Prasad Ranjan Roy is also likely to be released during the online ceremony. Presidency Alumni Association and Presidency University had celebrated 203rd Founders' Day at University campus on Jan 20 last year.

More than 2000 alumni, students, teaching and non-teaching staff had attended the function. Nobel Laureate Prof. Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee was declared as the Best Alumnus of the year.

The 'Hindoo College', established in 1817, was transformed into the 'Presidency College of Bengal' in 1855. In recognition of its rich heritage of academic excellence, the Legislature of West Bengal conferred the status of a University on Presidency College on July 7, 2010.

This was enacted to enable Presidency University to function more efficiently as a centre of teaching and research in various branches of learning.