New Delhi: Amid a raging row at JNU over some students being charged with sedition, the varsity's Centre for Social Studies has bagged 51st position in the QS World rankings, up by 7 ranks compared to previous year.
The jump in the world rankings comes at a time when the varsity is caught in a row over an event against hanging of Afzal Guru during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised, triggering concerns among people worldwide about whether the universitys image will suffer a setback because of the ongoing controversy.
Interestingly, some of the students who are facing charges in connection with the controversial February 9 event, are from the same department.
The Centre for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS), is one of the prestigious departments of sociology in India with student strength of around 450. About 35 students are awarded M. Phil degree and 25 students submit their doctoral dissertation every year on a range of socially relevant themes.
The Centre also houses a Chair in the name of Dr BR Ambedkar sponsored by the Ministry of Social Justice, Government of India which supports and conducts activities relating to the intellectual contributions of Babasaheb Ambedkar and provides scholarships to students from SC/ST sections for research work.
Last week, the university was also announced as winner of the Presidents award for excellence in research and innovation.
President Pranab Mukherjee had presented the award to the Molecular Parasitology Group of JNU for its pioneering work in the area of molecular parasitology, especially anti-malaria, leishmaniasis and amoebiasis.
The QS World University Rankings for 2015-16 which were released earlier this week take into account research quality, graduate employment, student-staff ratios, teaching standards and the number of international students while rating nearly 800 universities from all over the world.
However, the biggest single factor in the QS rankings is academic reputation. This is calculated by surveying more than 60,000 academics around the world about their opinion on the merits of institutions other than their own.
