The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been hogging limelight for all the wrong reasons since last February, but this time the 48-year-old varsity is in news for a good reason.
The varsity has bagged the annual 'Visitor's Award' for the best varsity in the country despite all the negative limelight.
The winners of ‘Visitor's Award’ for 'Innovation' and 'Research' will receive a citation and cash award of Rs 1 lakh. The awards will be presented during a function as part of the 'Festival of Innovations'.
JNU Vice Chancellor Jagadesh Kumar will receive the award including a citation and a trophy from President Pranab Mukherjee at an event at the Rasthrapati Bhavan on March 6.
"Deepak Pant from Central University of Himachal Pradesh has won the Visitor's Award for 'Innovation' while the Visitor's Award for 'Research' has been jointly won by Shyam Sunder from Banaras Hindu University and Niranjan Karak from Tezpur University," a Rashtrapati Bhavan statement said.
Last year, Rakesh Bhatnagar and the Molecular Parasitology Group of JNU had won the Visitor's Awards for "Research" and "Innovation" respectively.
Mukherjee had announced institution of these awards in 2014 with the aim of promoting healthy competition among Central Universities and motivating them to adopt the best practices from around the world in pursuit of excellence.
While Pant has bagged the award for development of a reactor for direct conversion of waste plastic to LPG in small scale, Sunder will be awarded for his work in the area of diagnosis and treatment of Indian Kala-azar.
Karak has been recognised for development of renewable resource based bio-degradable hyper-branched polymer nano-composites as self-cleaning, self-healing and bio-compatible smart sustainable futuristic material.
