NIRF rankings: JNU, Jamia among top 10 universities in country

New Delhi: The Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), which was one of the main centres of the anti-CAA protests in the national capital, and the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), which witnessed protests over a fee hike, are among the top 10 universities in the country, according to the NIRF rankings released by the HRD Ministry on Thursday.

The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) announced the rankings on Thursday. The annual rankings are usually announced in April but had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is the first time that the JMI has been placed among the top 10 universities in the NIRF rankings, the institute said. It has been given the 10th rank in the country in the “Universities” category. Last year, it was ranked 12th.

In the “Overall” category, the university is at the 16th position, improving its ranking from last year’s 19th. The IITs, IIMs, IISc and other top technical institutions and universities are included in the “Overall” category.

JMI Vice-Chancellor Professor Najma Akhtar said, “The achievement is all the more significant because of the challenging times the university has faced recently and also in the light of the increased competition in the ranking.”

She said the achievement was possible because of the relevant and focussed research of the highest quality and teaching by the dedicated and devoted faculty members.

JNU Students’ Union president Aishe Ghosh tweeted, saying, “JNU bags 2nd rank again! From being #AntiNational to #ShutDownJNU we stood strong against all our haters. JNU Study and Struggle Long Live #ProudJNUite.”

The ranking framework evaluates institutions on five broad generic groups of parameters – teaching, learning and resources (TLR), research and professional practice (RP), graduation outcomes (GO), outreach and inclusivity (OI) and perception (PR). The ranks are given on the basis of the total sum of marks assigned for each of these five broad groups of parameters.

A total of 3,771 unique institutions had offered themselves for the “Overall”, category-specific or domain-specific rankings for the India Rankings 2020