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PU has potential to become best university in country: Dhankhar
Addressing the annual convocation at PU, Dhankhar said, “Various Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Prime Ministers and Chief Justices of India were products of this university.”
Vice-President of India and Panjab University (PU) chancellor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Saturday said that the varsity has great potential and can become one of the best universities in the country.
Addressing the annual convocation at PU, Dhankhar said, “Various Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Prime Ministers and Chief Justices of India were products of this university. It speaks volumes about the quality this varsity has to offer. I feel that the university can reach greater heights.” His comments come at a time when PU’s rankings have dipped compared to some of the other private universities in the region.
In the 2023 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, PU was placed in the 801-1,000 bracket, behind many private universities in the region. The varsity also slipped in the Union education ministry’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2022
Dhankhar exhorted students to “avail opportunities and script the blueprint for a ‘New India’ at 2047 when the nation celebrates the centenary of its independence”.
“It will be the young generation who will take the country forward when many of the older generation won’t be there. You must feel proud to be Indian.”
He said India has an edge in technology, and mobile internet usage and online payments have bridged the digital divide. Sharing how education was a tool for social empowerment, Dhankhar shared his example and said “How if he hadn’t received a scholarship, he may have ended up elsewhere in life.”
Dhankhar asked the students to be fearless and confident. “No one has accomplished great heights and brought changes in society without failure,” he said, adding, “Be bold, be creative, be innovative, be confident, dream big and work hard.” He congratulated students and added on a kind note that academics weren’t everything. “Everyone has experienced failure in some form or the other, and students must not fear failure,” he said before ending with the popular quote from the Hindi film, Sholay, “Jo dar gaya, so mar gaya”, amid applause from the audience.
As many as 501 students were conferred PhD degrees at the convocation. Postgraduate degrees were conferred to 312 students, while 73 students were conferred undergraduate degrees. As many as 244 students were conferred gold awards by the university.
PhD degrees were awarded to 325 female students and 176 male students. Out of the total, a maximum of 182 PhD degrees were awarded to students of Punjab, followed by Haryana (115), Himachal Pradesh (73 degrees) and Chandigarh (70). Two PhD degrees were conferred to students from Vietnam, and one PhD degree was conferred to a student from Ethiopia. Former chief minister of Punjab Charanjit Singh Channi also received his PhD for his research on the Indian National Congress.
Dhankar awarded honorary degrees of Doctor of Literature to noted educator, author and philanthropist Sudha N Murty and Doctor of Law to former Chief Justice of India and MP Ranjan Gogoi.
He also conferred awards to Punjabi literature scholar Dr Rattan Singh Jaggi, parasitologist Dr Veena Tandon, lyricist Dr Irshad Kamil and industrialist Rakesh Bharti Mittal.
Dhankhar also visited the university in 2022 for the first convocation after the pandemic and hailed the appointment of the first woman vice-chancellor this year.
During his visit, the Vice-President held separate meetings with Senate Members, Syndicate Members, the Students’ Union, the Teachers Association and the Non-Teachers’ Association of Panjab University.
Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit, Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya, Union Minister Som Prakash and Punjab Cabinet Minister Harjot Singh were also present.
Dr Sudesh Dhankar, the wife of the vice-president, inaugurated the newly built multipurpose hall of Ankur School, which is inside the PU campus.
