JNU has completed historic faculty recruitment, made inclusive promotions: VC

New Delhi, Jan 12 (PTI) JNU Vice Chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit on Monday said the university administration has restored academic excellence, completed historic faculty recruitment and made inclusive and transparent promotions.

The VC further said the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has raised a Rs 70-crore corpus fund.

Speaking at the 9th convocation ceremony of the central university here, Pandit said since its inception in 1969, the JNU has expanded to 14 schools, nine special centres and various other programmes.

"The university now runs 80 PhD programmes, 49 master's-level programmes, 13 bachelor's-level programmes, seven certificate courses, three diplomas, one PG (post-graduate) diploma," the VC said, adding that the current student strength of the university stands at around 9,100 and this year, admissions are over-subscribed with the number crossing the 3,000 mark.

Thanking the Centre, she said due to various of its policies, the JNU has plenty of diversity. "Thanks to the CUET, NEP and JRF, we have students from 15 states studying on the campus. All the reserved-category seats have been filled and the cut-off for the reserved category is at par with the general category," she said.

Pandit said the JNU is one of the top universities in the country and it has completed the third cycle of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation, scoring "A++".

"We have improved our National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranking from 10 to nine," she added.

The VC said the university is completely funded by the Centre and remains the most affordable university in terms of the fees it charges.

She said the JNU has a special focus on the Indian Knowledge System (IKS) and has held one of the biggest conferences on the topic.

"We have used Indian civilisational knowledge and pedagogical wisdom in all of our courses," she said, adding that the university has put a special focus on Indian languages.

"Jain businessmen have come together and donated Rs 10 crore for the Jain chair," the VC announced. She also pointed out that the JNU has an oral-history section within the history department.

Pandit said the integration of the Indic knowledge system with its courses has made the JNU a hub of maritime and security studies.

"We are calling it Project Trishul -- the integration of Indic wisdom at the Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Centre for Security and Strategic Studies, Lachit Borphukan Special Centre for the Study of Hydro-strategic Architecture in Asia and Raja Rajendra Chola Centre for Maritime Studies of Bay of Bengal and Eastern Indo-Pacific," she said.

Pandit said recently, the JNU has received BioNest, a new biotech incubator being set up by the university with a grant from the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) to foster innovation and startups in life sciences, complementing existing facilities like the AIC-JNUFI.

The VC said women's participation in the JNU has increased over the years. "When I took over, there were 19 per cent women. Today, there are 27 per cent women in top leadership positions," she said.

The VC said the JNU stands on 10 Ds -- democracy, development, deliberation, discussion, debate, diversity, difference, dissent, decentralisation and dharma. PTI VBH RC