Jadavpur University


Jadavpur University is a public state university located in Kolkata in the state of West Bengal in India. It was established in 1955.

History

National Council of Education, Bengal

is one of the three universities in early modern India, the other two being Bombay and Madras University. It was set up by the British in Calcutta in 1857 as a means of spreading western philosophical thought among the elite in India. It also aimed to create, in the words of Lord Macaulay, "a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect."
The nationalists in the freedom struggle of India dubbed the Calcutta University, another pillar of India's education movement, as "Goldighir Ghulamkhana", or the slave house of Goldighi, with reference to the lake adjacent to Calcutta University, and the many graduates it churned out who were used in the British colonial era as ICS officers. Hence, the need for setting up an institution which would impart education along nationalist lines was strongly felt by the luminaries of the period. The real impetus, though, was provided by the partitioning of Bengal by Lord Curzon, the then Governor-General of India, into East Bengal on the one hand and West Bengal and Odisha on the other. The young men of Bengal were amongst the most active in the Swadeshi movement, and the participation of university students drew the ire of the Raj. R.W. Carlyle prohibited the participation of students in political meetings on the threat of withdrawal of funding and grants. The decade preceding these decrees had seen Bengali intellectuals increasingly calling for indigenous schools and colleges to replace British institutions.
Generous sums of money were also donated by Brojendra Kishore Roy Choudhury, Maharaja Suryya Kanto Acharya Choudhury and Rashbihari Ghosh, who was appointed the first president of the university. Aurobindo served as the first principal of the college. The organisation in its early days was intricately associated with the nascent revolutionary nationalism in Bengal at the time. It was during his time as principal that Aurobindo started his nationalist publications Jugantar, Karmayogin and Bande Mataram.
The students' mess at the college was frequented by students of East Bengal who belonged to the Dhaka branch of the Anushilan Samiti, and was known to be hotbed of revolutionary nationalism, which was uncontrolled or even encouraged by the college.

Campus

Jadavpur University is semi-residential, which at present operates out of two urban campuses: one in Jadavpur and another in Salt Lake.

National Instruments Limited Campus

In 2013, Defence Research & Development Organisation announced plans to set up one of the country's biggest state-of-the-art research hubs and Advanced Technology Centre at the NIL campus. In the same year, CSIR announced the setting up of a research centre for big data analytics and an Inverted Innovation Centre alongside the research hub already announced by DRDO.

Affiliated institutes

In addition to being a unitary university, it has other institutes like the J D Birla Institute, Jadavpur Vidyapith as well as the Institute of Business Management, Jadavpur University affiliated to it, which operate out of independent campuses. While these institutes have their own independent curriculum as well as examination systems, the final degree is offered by Jadavpur University.

Rankings

Internationally, Jadavpur University ranked 651-700 by the QS World University Rankings in 2020, 136 in Asia in 2020 and 75 among BRICS nations in 2019. It was ranked 801-1000 in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings of 2020, 196 in Asia and 178 among Emerging Economies University Rankings in 2020. It was also ranked 772 in the world by U.S. News & World Report. The university was ranked 543rd in the world by CWTS Leiden Ranking in 2017, for the period 2012–2015.
The National Institutional Ranking Framework has ranked it 17 among engineering institutes in India in 2020, 12 overall and 5th among universities.

Publication house

The university press publishes all documents of record in the university including PhD theses, question papers and journals. On 26 October 2010 the institution announced plans to launch a publication house, named Jadavpur University Press. The main focus of the publication house will be to publish textbooks and thesis written by research scholars and authors from all universities. The first two titles of JUP were launched on 1 February 2012 at the Calcutta Book Fair. The two titles were Rajpurush ; translated by Doyeeta Majumder, with an introduction by Swapan Kumar Chakravorty, and Shilpachinta ; translated by Sukanta Chaudhuri. Both books were translated from the original Italian.

Affiliated Schools

To facilitate interdisciplinary learning and research in diverse fields, there are a number of schools and centre for studies. Some of the major research ventures undertaken by these schools include the pioneering work done by the School of Environmental Studies in highlighting the presence of arsenic in groundwater in countries like India and Bangladesh and the development of the first alcohol based car by the School of Automobile Engineering.
The centres for studies are usually directly associated with a particular department and the centres in Jadavpur University are:
In March 2011, Indian American scientist Manick Sorcar assisted in the opening of a laser animation lab under the School of Illumination Science, Engineering and Design.

Notable alumni

Alumni of this university are known as 'Jadavpurians', or in Bangla as 'যদুবংশ'. The Alumni Association, one of the oldest in the country, was founded in 1921 by the ex-students of the National Council of Education.
In 2014 a series of protests broke out in response to the alleged molestation of a female student and beating of a male student by 10 other students on 28 August 2014. Her family and ultimately the student body were unsatisfied by the response of the Vice Chancellor to the allegations. Protests began on 10 September. On 16 September students gheraoed several officials in their offices, demanding that the Vice Chancellor make a statement on the status of a fair probe. Police were summoned, and later that night the police allegedly attacked and beat the student demonstrators. 30 to 40 students were injured; some had to be hospitalized. Reaction was nationwide, with supportive protests at multiple other cities including New Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore. On 20 September, Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi, who is also the chancellor of the university, met with student representatives and promised to conduct an impartial inquiry. However, students said they will continue to boycott classes until the Vice Chancellor resigns.
On 26 September, a State Government inquiry panel submitted its report, confirming that the female student had indeed been sexually abused on 28 August 2014. On 26 September, police summoned two Jadavpur University students to come to the Lalbazar Police HQ for questioning at 4 pm on Friday. They were arrested at 6 pm. "The arrests were made after evidence was found, prima facie, against the duo. Further investigation is on," said joint CP-crime Pallab Kanti Ghosh. Mr Ghosh also stated, " were arrested because we had enough evidence to prove that they were present at the spot and had carried out the crime as alleged in the victim's complaint." The duo were booked under Sections of 354, 342, 323 and 114 of the IPC.
JU has been embroiled in controversies since July 4, 2018 when the executive council announced its decision to scrap entrance tests for six subjects which was met with protests from the Jadavpur University Teacher's Association and the student unions along with other academics and University students.