JNU V-C Jagadesh Kumar named new UGC chairman
JNU V-C Jagadesh Kumar named new UGC chairman
New Delhi, Feb. 4 (Delhi Crown): Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Vice-Chancellor Jagadesh Kumar was on Friday appointed as the Chairman of higher education regulator University Grants Commission (UGC).
Kumar’s term as UGC Chairman shall be for five years from the date of the assumption of charge, or until he turns 65.
His name was shortlisted for the post along with that of Nitin R. Karmalkar, the V-C of the Pune University, and Avinash Chandra Pandey, the Director of the Inter-University Accelerator Centre, a body under the UGC.
The appointment comes amid changes in the higher education sector with the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020.
Kumar will be replaced with a new VC, the appointment of whom is in process separately.
His tenure as JNU V-C coincided with the 2016 sedition row, protests against hostel fee increase, and an attack on campus by a masked mob in January 2020. He remained at loggerheads with students’ and teachers’ unions over issues such as alleged seat cut in research courses, the way meetings of statutory bodies were conducted, and alleged irregularities in faculty appointments.
Kumar is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. He was a professor at IIT Delhi before he was appointed as the vice-chancellor in 2016. Days before the end of his JNU term in January 2021, the education ministry granted him an extension “until further orders”.
