This Day, That Year – January 24

This day in history we feature the University of Calcutta. The first fully fledged university in South Asia was founded on this day in 1857.

Trivia – University of Calcutta

The University of Calcutta is a public collegiate state research university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered one of best state research university all over India every year, CU has topped among India’s best universities several times. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate colleges and 16 institutes in Kolkata and nearby areas. It was established on 24 January 1857 and is the oldest multidisciplinary and European-style institution in Asia. Today, the university’s jurisdiction is limited to a few districts of West Bengal, but at the time of establishment it had a catchment area, ranging from Lahore to Myanmar. Within India, it is recognized as a “Five-Star University” and accredited an “A+” grade by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).

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The University of Calcutta was awarded the status of “Centre with Potential for Excellence in Particular Area” and “University with potential for excellence” by the University Grants Commission. The university has a total of fourteen campuses spread over the city of Kolkata and its suburbs. As of 2020, 151 colleges and 21 institutes and centres are affiliated with it. The university was fourth in the Indian University Ranking 2021 list, released by the National Institutional Ranking Framework of the Ministry of Education of the Government of India. Its alumni and faculty include several heads of state and government, social reformers, prominent artists, the only Indian Academy award winner and Dirac medal winner, many Fellows of the Royal Society and three Nobel laureates as of 2019. The Nobel laureates associated with this university are: C. V. Raman, Amartya Sen and Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee. The university has the highest number of students who have cleared the National Eligibility Test. The University of Calcutta is a member of the United Nations Academic Impact. The University of Calcutta has the largest research center, which started from the 100th Science Congress of India in January 2013. This is the Center for Research in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (CRNN) on the Technology Campus of CU at Salt Lake, West Bengal. The university has 18 research centres, 710 teachers, 3000 non-teaching staff and 11,000 postgraduate students. The university library has over one million books and more than 200,000 bound journals, proceedings, manuscripts, patents and other valuable collections. The university has its own publishing house called University Press and Publications along with a book depot, which was established in the 20th century. It publishes textbooks, treatises, journals and confidential papers for all the examinations conducted by the university. It also publishes the journal The Calcutta Review, which is one of the oldest Asian university journals. The Calcutta Review was established by Sir John Kaye in May 1844. In India, the University of Calcutta was ranked 11th overall by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) in 2021 and 4th among universities.

Source – Wikipedia