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PU senate to take up names for honorary degrees, awards at annual convocation
Traditionally, recommendations sent by the PU syndicate are usually accepted and approved by the Senate without making any changes
Panjab University (PU) senate will meet in online mode on Tuesday to consider the recommendations of the special syndicate meeting called on Tuesday to confer the “honoris causa” degrees and Panjab University Ratna awards at the 70th convocation of Panjab University to be held on May 20.
Traditionally, recommendations sent by the syndicate are usually accepted and approved by the Senate without making any changes.
As per the syndicate recommendations, honorary degree for the Doctor of Sciences (DSc) will be conferred to virologist Dr Gagandeep Kang, the Doctor of Law degree will be awarded to former Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Doctor of Literature (DLit) will be conferred to Infosys Foundation chairperson Dr Sudha N Murthy and the honorary degree for the Doctor of Laws will be conferred to former chief justice of India Justice Ranjan Gogoi.
The University will also confer Olympian Neeraj Chopra with the Khel Ratna award, lyricist Irshad Kamil with the Sahitya Ratna, vice-chairperson of Bharti Enterprises Rakesh Bharti Mittal with the Udyog Ratna, actor Ayushmann Khurana with the Kala Ratna, parasitologist and Padma Shri awardee Veena Tandon with the Vigyan Ratna and Padma Shri awardee and Punjabi literature scholar Rattan Singh Jaggi with the Gyan Ratna.
The high-powered committee constituted by the vice-chancellor (V-C) earlier on April 26 to recommend these names. Those in attendance included chairperson professor Harmohinder Singh Bedi, chancellor of the Central University of Himachal Pradesh, SK Tomar vice-chancellor of JC Bose University of Science and Technology, YMCA, Faridabad and former PU V-C professor Arun Kumar Grover among others.
It was informed in the meeting, convened by the PU registrar, two to three honorary degrees going up to four and a set of three Ratna awards are awarded at the convocation. But since the convocation could not be held in 2020 and 2021, it was decided to award all six Ratna awards as done in 2022.
The names of Mahajan and Murthy had been recommended for honorary degrees in 2018 and 2019 respectively, while Chopra’s name had been recommended for the Khel Ratna award in 2022. It was decided to recommend these three names again for the convocation this year.
Sharing further details, PU authorities said Kang is the first woman scientist from India to be elected as a fellow of the Royal Society, and since 2020, had been an ex-officio member of a working group on Covid-19 vaccines established by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts at the World Health Organisation.
Mahajan represented Indore as the longest-serving woman member of parliament. She is the second woman to be elected as speaker of Lok Sabha after Meira Kumar and was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2021.
Murthy, an educator, philanthropist and author, was awarded the Padma Shri in 2006. Gogoi has remained the chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana high court from 2011 to 2012 and is a serving member of the Rajya Sabha. He holds the distinction of being the first chief justice from North East India.
