Silchar, Aug 25: Assam University ranks41st among 500 universities in the country. This ranking comes from the latest 2011 survey of Indian universities conducted by India Today– AC Nielson survey which speaks for itself the excellence being achieved by this centre of learning in its brief but eventful existence of 17 years. In the 2010 survey also conducted by thesame group found 48th position for this University. In scientific research domain, the University has
been ranked 7th by the Association of Indian Universities. Some of the faculty members have earned laurels and received national and international patent rights over their inventions. Prof Gyan Prakash Pandey,Dean, Department of Mass Communications, said this in a tete-e-tete with The Sentinel.
Dr Pradeep Verma of the department of microbiology who has two patents to his credits, one was registered in Japan. Prof Manabendra Dutta Chowdhury of the department of life science and bioinformatics has recently patented saloglycosydane, ananalgesic natural product isolated from solanum torvum. Dr JK Sahu of the department of agricultural engineering has two Indian patents tohis credit and was awarded the APV Seligman Young Scientist Award in 2007 by the Society
of Chemical Industry, London. Around 1500 research scholars are engaged inM Phil, PhD and D Lit research programmes, Prof. Pandey pointed out.
Continuing, he said there have been significant achievements in improvingfacilities in terms of infrastructure andlearning-environment. At present, there are 34 post graduate departments under 16 schools of studies, offering a wide range of programmes. The University has reorganized its 9 schools into 16 and similarly made an ambitious plan to include 78 departments and 175 centres of studies in its ordinance. In this increasingly globalized world, Assam University for academic excellence and growth in higher education has gone into collaborationwith universities nationally and internationally.
Memoranda of Understanding has been signed with several foreign universities in Asia, Europe and North America. These include Ziao Tong University,
Shanghai, China, University of Nantes, France, University of Kobe, Japan, University of Florida, USA, University ofMontreal, Canada, Universities of Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshai, and Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh. To foster thisprocess of internationalization further, the University has established the directorate of national and international collaboration recently, Prof Pandey further added to say.
The University has been selected as a constituent member of the India- UK leadership development initiative. It has also entered into an agreement with Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. This has come as a major boost to the University fraternity in its quest for joint research, student exchange as well as faculty with foreign universities. The ambitious plan for academic pursuit includes new programmes to deal with robotic technology, genetic engineering, space science, Chinese, defence studies, multimedia and animation, besides, conflict resolution,peace studies, astrophysics, seismology and forensic chemistry. "All this achievement has been possible due to the dynamism and visionary leadership of Vice-Chancellor, Dr Tapodhir Bhattacharjee", Prof GP Pandey said. (SENTINELASSAM)