Article originally from Times of India

NEW DELHI: IIT-Madras rules the HRD ministry’s ranking of higher education institutions across the country, not only topping the overall category, but also emerging numero uno in the first edition of the Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA).

Among the top 10 institutions in the overall category, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore dropped one position to be at the second place.

Miranda House continued to be the top college with as many as six colleges of Delhi University featuring in the top 10 colleges this year.

IIT-Madras has been ranked on top in the overall category for the first time in the National Institutional Rankings Framework (NIRF) 2019, while it retained its number one position in the engineering category for the fourth consecutive year.

 IISc had been ranked on top for the first three editions of the NIRF rankings. IITs dominated the rankings with seven of them among the top 10. Two non-technological universities in the top 10 are Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi and Banaras Hindu University.

President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, released and presented the awards on Monday in Delhi.

Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar congratulated participants in the NIRF and said he was pleased to see that the rankings were being taken seriously. “Happy to note that there is steady increase in participation of colleges and universities in India Rankings year after year from its inception in 2016, reflection of healthy competition for quality. Also happy to note that institutions are taking India Rankings seriously and taking steps to improve their rankings. Colleges/universities have even set up special committees to look into their performance and take measures to improve their rankings.”

IIT-Madras excelled in ARIIA owning to its strong entrepreneurial eco-system that encourages students to become jobgenerators. The institute has forums like Center for Innovation (CFI), which provides a platform to students to “walk in with an idea and walk out with a product”. CFI has augmented the “tech” space in the institute wherein projects from CFI have gone on to produce high-profile start-ups and internationally acclaimed competition teams.

Speaking about these achievements, professor Bhaskar Ramamurthi, director, IIT Madras, said: “We are delighted that our efforts to constantly improve our course programmes, research, and industry collaboration, as well the creation of a world-class innovation ecosystem in India’s first-of-its-kind Research Park at IIT Madras, are being recognized. We will continue to strive to excel in all these spheres.”

Eight of the ten top engineering institutions are IITs led by IIT-Madras followed by Delhi and Mumbai. Anna University, Chennai and National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli have been ranked at nine and ten in the category.

Among management colleges, top six ranks have been retained by Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) led by Bengaluru. IITDelhi, Mumbai and Roorkee are also among the top ten in the category.

Jamia Hamdard has bagged top honours for pharmacy while All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and National Law School of India University, Bengaluru have been adjudged as the best medical college and law school respectively.

A total of 3,127 institutions participated in the ranking process under overall rankings, category-specific and domain specific ranking. In all, 4,867 applications for rankings were made by the 3,127 applicant institutions under various categories and domains.

Started in 2015, NIRF outlines a methodology to rank educational institutions across the country. The parameters used for ranking broadly cover teaching, learning and resources, research and professional practices, graduation outcome, outreach and inclusivity, and perception. From 2017, besides being ranked under specific disciplines, large institutions were also given a common overall rank. This year as well, educational institutions across the country were ranked in nine categories – overall, universities, engineering, colleges, management, pharmacy, medical, architecture and law.