University of Calcutta


The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University, is a collegiate public state university located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was established on 24 January 1857 and was one of the first institutions in Asia to be established as a multidisciplinary and Western-style university. Presently, the jurisdiction of the University limited to a few districts of West Bengal. Within India, it is recognized as a "Five-Star University" and accredited "A" Grade by National Assessment and Accreditation Council. 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 UGC.
The university has a total of fourteen campuses spread over the city of Kolkata and its suburbs. As of 2012, 136 colleges are affiliated to it. The university has secured the fifth position among the Universities of India in the prestigious "Indian University Ranking 2019" list, released by the NIRF of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.
Its alumni and faculty include several heads of state, heads of government, social reformers, prominent artists, only Academy award winner and Dirac medal winner in India, many Fellows of the Royal Society and five Nobel laureates as of 2019 which is highest in South Asia. Five Nobel laureates associated with this university are; Ronald Ross. Rabindra Nath Tagore, C. V. Raman, Amartya Sen and Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee. The university has the highest number of students who have cleared the doctoral entrance eligibility exam in Natural Science & Arts conducted by Government of India's National Eligibility Test to become eligible to pursue research with a full scholarship awarded by the Government of India. The University of Calcutta is a member of United Nations Academic Impact.

History

Pre-independence

Dr. Fredrick John, the education secretary to the then British Government in India, first tendered a proposal to the British Government in London for the establishment of a university in Calcutta, along the lines of London University, In July 1854, the Court of Directors of the East India Company sent a despatch, known as Wood's despatch, to the Governor General of India in Council, to establish universities in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay.The Calcutta University Act came into force on 24 January 1857 and a 41-member Senate was formed as the policy-making body of the university. The land for the establishment of this university was given by Maharaja Maheshwar Singh Bahadur, who was a Maharaja of Darbhanga. When the university was first established it had a catchment area covering the area from Lahore to Rangoon, and Ceylon, the largest of any Indian university. Calcutta University became the first university located to the East of Suez to teach European classics, English literature, European and Indian philosophy and Occidental and Oriental history. The first medical school of Asia, the Calcutta Medical College got affiliated to the university in 1857. The first college for women in India, the Bethune College is affiliated to the university. From 1836 to 1890, Government Science College, Jabalpur, the first science college of India, was affiliated to the University of Calcutta. The first university library started functioning in the 1870s. Joddu Nath Bose and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay became the first graduates of the university in 1858 and Dr. Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Basu were the first female graduates of India in 1882. The first Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University were Governor General Lord Canning and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Sir William Colvile, respectively. Ashutosh Mukherjee was the Vice-Chancellor for four consecutive two-year terms and a fifth two-year term.
Initially the University was only an affiliating and examining body. All the academic and teaching works were done in constituent colleges, which were the Presidency College, the Sanskrit College and the Bengal Engineering College. During that time, meetings of the Senate were held in the Council Room of the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital and at the private residence of the Vice-Chancellor. The Faculty councils generally met at the residences of the Presidents of the faculties concerned, in the Civil Engineering College or in the Writers’ Building. Due to the lack of space, University examinations were held in the Town Hall and at other places like Maidan, by using tents. In 1866, a grant of Rs. 81,600 for the site and Rs 1,70,561 was santioned, to construct the new edifice in College Street. It opened in 1873, and it was called Senate House and had meeting halls of the Senate, chamber of the Vice-Chancellor, office of the Registrar, examination rooms and lecture halls. Till 1960, it was one of the most prominent landmarks of the city and after the Centenary of Calcutta University, the building was demolished to make space for more utilitarian building. In 1968 the Centenary Building opened in the place of the Senate House. Currently, it houses the Central Library, the Asutosh Museum of Indian Art, the centenary auditorium and a number of offices of the University. Gradually the requirements of the University grew, and the Senate House was becoming incapable of handling the same. In 1904, postgraduate teaching and research started in the university, which led to increase in the number of students and candidates. Almost after sixty years of establishment, in 1912 the second building, known as Darbhanga Building was erected with a donation of Rs. 2.5 lakhs from Maharaja Maheshwar Singh Bahadur. It housed the University Law College, its library and some university offices besides affording space to hold the University examinations on its top floor. In the same year, Government of British India granted a sum of Rs 8 lakh for the acquisition of a market, called Madhab Babu’s Bazar, situated adjacent to the Senate House, and construction a new building for the teaching departments. It opened in 1926, and later it was named Asutosh Building, after Asutosh Mukherjee, vice-chancellor of the university in 1906-14. Between 1912 and 1914, Taraknath Palit and Rash Behari Ghosh, two eminent lawyers, donated assets totalling Rs. 25 lakhs, and founded the University College of Science at 92, Upper Circular Road.

Post-independence

Before the partition of India, twenty seven colleges from East Bengal was affliated to the university. In 1951, the Government of West Bengal passed the Calcutta University Act, which substituted the earlier act of 1904, ensured a democratic structure of the University. West Bengal Secondary Education Act was passed in the same year, linking the university with school leaving examination. In 1957, on the centenary year of the University, it received a grant of Rs 1 crore from University Grants Commission, which aided the construction of Centenary Building at the College Street campus and the Law College Building on Hazra Road. The Economics Department got its own building in 1958 near Barrackpore Trunk Road. Goenka Hospital Diagnostic Research Centre for the University College of Medicine. was opened in 1965 to provide medical care to the University community. By the mid-1970s, it became one of the largest universities in the world, with 13 colleges under its direct control and more than 150 affiliated colleges, as well as 16 postgraduate faculties. In the year 2001 the University of Calcutta was awarded with the 'Five Star' status in the first cycle of the University's accreditation by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council. In 2009 and 2017, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council awarded its highest grade of 'A' to the University of Calcutta in 2nd & 3rd cycle of the University's accreditation. In 2019, the university's central library and 40 departmental libraries were opened to the general public. It has over one million books and more than 200,000 journals, proceedings and manuscripts.

Seal

The seal has changed multiple times over the years. The current university seal is the modified version of the sixth seal. The motto Advancement of Learning has remained the same through the seal's transitions.

Campuses

The university has a total of 14 campuses spread over the city of Kolkata and its suburbs. The campuses are referred to as "Sikhsa Prangan" which in Bangla means education premises. Major campuses are the Central Campus in College Street, Rashbehari Shiksha Prangan or Science College in Rajabazar, Taraknath Palit Shiksha Prangan in Ballygunge and Sahid Khudiram Siksha Prangan in Alipore. Other campuses include the Hazra Road Campus, the University Press and Book Depot, the B. T. Road Campus, the Viharilal College of Home Science Campus, the University Health Service, the Haringhata Campus, the Dhakuria Lakes and the University Ground and Tent at Maidan.

Asutosh Siksha Prangan

Siksha Prangan is the main campus of the university, where the administrative work is done. Located on College Street, is spread over an area of. It has Arts and Language department, administrative offices, museum, central library, auditorium etc. Senate House was the first building of the university, opened in 1872, situated in this campus. In 1960, it was demolished to make way for a larger building, the Centenary Building which opened in 1968. Darbhanga Building and Asutosh Building are the two other buildings opened in 1921 and 1926, respectively.

Rashbehari Siksha Prangan

Siksha Prangan is, located on Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road in Rajabazar, established in 1914, houses several scientific and technological departments, including pure and applied chemistry, pure and applied physics, Radiophysics, applied mathematics, psychology, physiology, biophysics and molecular biology, and others.

Taraknath Palit Siksha Prangan

Siksha Prangan on Ballygunge Circular Road in the southern part of the city, houses the departments of agriculture, anthropology, biochemistry, microbiology, botany, genetics, statistics, zoology, neuroscience, marine science, biotechnology, and most notably geology, among others. It also houses S. N. Pradhan Centre For Neurosciences and Institute of Agricultural Science.

Sahid Khudiram Siksha Prangan

Siksha Prangan commonly known as Alipore Campus, located at Alipore is the Humanities campus of the University. Departments of History, Ancient Indian History & Culture, Islamic History & Culture, South & Southeast Asian Studies, Archaeology, Political Science, Business Management are situated on this campus. Department of Museology which is also housed on this campus is a valuable department of the University as well as any universities in India.

Technology Campus

It is the newest campus of the university, also known as "Tech Campus", to bring together the three engineering and technical departments, in Sector 3, JD Block, Salt Lake.

Administration

The university is governed by a board of Administrative officers, which include the Vice-Chancellor, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Business Affairs & Finance, Registrar, University Librarian, Inspector of Colleges, System Manager and 35 others. They monitor and ensure smooth operations in the university and the affiliated colleges and funding of the university.

Finances

The university is funded by University Grants Commission, Government of West Bengal, other agencies for various research works and by university's own initiatives like fees, sales proceeds, publications, service charges generated from endowment funds etc.

Affliated Colleges

As of 2020, 151 colleges, 21 institutes and centres are affiliated with the university.
Some of the earliest affiliated colleges:

Academics

Admission

For undergraduate courses, Commerce and Science, one can directly apply for multiple courses based on their Higher Secondary examination or any equivalent exam results. Students are shortlisted according to their marks and number of seats available. For some departments, entrance exam may take place depending on the sole discretion of the Head of the Department. Anyone can apply within five years of passing Higher Secondary examination. For engineering courses, admission is done on the basis of West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination ranks. While, for postgraduate courses and doctorate degree courses, one has to appear for entrance exam/written test held by the university or any national level exam related to the subject, held by University Grants Commission. A merit list is prepared on the basis of result of the exams.

Research

Undergraduates may enroll for a three-year program, a four-year program in Engineering. Students choose a major when they enter the university, and cannot change it later unless they opt for the university's professional or self-financed postgraduate programs later. Science and business disciplines are in high demand, largely in the anticipation of better employment prospects. Most programs are organized on an annual basis, though some programs are semester dependent. Most departments offer masters programs of a year or a few years' duration. Research is conducted in specialized institutes as well as individual departments, many of which have doctoral programs.
The University of Calcutta has the biggest research center which started from the 100th Science Congress of India in January 2013. This is the Center for Research in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in 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 post-graduate students.

Libraries

The central library, at the Asutosh Siksha Prangan, started functioning around the 1870s. Apart from 39 departmental libraries, it has a central library, two campus libraries, and two libraries of the advanced centers spread across the seven campuses. Students of affiliated colleges can also access the central library. The university library has over 10 a million books and more than 200,000 bound journals, proceedings, manuscripts, and patents.

Publishing

The university has its own publishing house named "University Press and Publications" along with a book depot, which was established in the 20th century. It publishes textbooks, treatises, journals and confidential papers regarding all the examinations conducted by the University. It also publishes the journal The Calcutta Review which is one of the oldest university journals of Asia. The Calcutta Review was established by Sir John Kaye in May, 1844. It is issued biannually since, 1913.

Rankings

Internationally, the University of Calcutta was ranked 801–1000 in the QS World University Rankings of 2020. The same rankings ranked it 139 in Asia and 68 among BRICS nations.
In India, University Calcutta ranked 11th overall by National Institutional Ranking Framework in 2020 and 7th among universities.

Accreditation and recognition

In Year 2001 the University of Calcutta was awarded with the ‘Five Star’ status in the first cycle of the University's accreditation by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council. In 2009 and 2017, NAAC awarded its highest grade of 'A' to the University of Calcutta in 2nd & 3rd cycle of the University's accreditation. University Grants Commission recognised the University of Calcutta as a "University with Potential for Excellence" on 8 December 2005. The Manuscript Library at the University has also been designated as a "Manuscript Conservation Centre" under the National Mission for Manuscripts, which was established in 2003.
The university has 65 departments organised into eight faculties: agriculture; arts; commerce; social welfare & business management; education, journalism and library science; engineering & technology; fine arts, music and home science; law and science.
Institute of Agricultural Science offers postgraduate courses in agro-technology, agro-ecology, agronomy, agriculture chemistry and soil science, agriculture and rural development, agriculture and resource economics, agricultural engineering, animal science, bacteriology, crop science, dairy science, fisheries science, food technology, horticulture, genetics & plant breeding, soil and water science, seed science & technology among others. The College of Agriculture was founded by professor Pabitra Kumar Sen, who was the Khaira Professor of Agriculture in the early 1950s. The faculty of Arts consists of the departments of Ancient Indian History and Culture, archaeology, anthropology, Arabic & Persian, Bengali, language and literature, comparative Indian literature, creative writing, classics, demography, economics, ethnic studies, English language and literature, Hindi, history, linguistics, museology, Pali, philosophy, psychology, political science, public policy & administration, sociology, Sanskrit, South and South-East Asian Studies, theater and drama, gender and women's studies. The faculty Education, Journalism, and Library Science consists of three departments that offer courses on education, journalism and mass communication, and library & information science. The faculty of Engineering & Technology consists of the departments of applied optics and photonics, applied physics, chemical engineering, chemical technology, computer science and engineering, information technology, polymer science and technology, petroleum engineering, radiophysics and electronics, Jute And Fibre Technology. The Department of Home Science, which offers courses on subjects such as food and nutrition, human development, and home science. The faculty of law was established in January 1909 as the University College of Law, it was granted the status as the department of law of the university in February 1996. This campus is popularly known as Hazra Law College. The faculty has many luminaries associated with it, including Rajendra Prasad, Rashbehari Ghose, and Chittaranjan Das. Faculty of Science has twenty departments. It offers courses on traditional science subjects.

Student life

Student halls of residence

Most of the affiliated undergraduate colleges located in the city have their own separate student hostels. The university has 17 hostels, of which eight are for women, and in total 13 hostels are for 'paying guest' students, which are scattered all over the city.

Honoris Causa

Vice-chancellors

List of vice-chancellors of the university:
The university has produced many scientists, engineers, world leaders and Nobel laureates and teachers. As the oldest university of Bengal and India, it attracted students from diverse walks of life. Nobel laureates who either studied or worked here include Rabindranath Tagore, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, Ronald Ross, Amartya Sen, and Abhijit Banerjee. The Academy Award winning director Satyajit Ray was an alumnus of this university. So was the composer of the national song of India, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. Some of the industrialists who studied in this university include Sir Rajen Mookerjee, Rama Prasad Goenka, Lakshmi Mittal, Vinay Maloo and Aditya Birla. Notable scientists and mathematicians associated with the university include Jagadish Chandra Bose, Prafulla Chandra Ray, Meghnad Saha, Anil Kumar Gain, Satyendra Nath Bose and Ashoke Sen.
A nationalist leader and former president of the Indian National Congress, co-founder of the Indian National Army, and head of state of the Provisional Government of Free India, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose also spent some time here. Other presidents of the Indian National Congress include Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, Surendranath Banerjee, Anandamohan Bose, Romesh Chunder Dutt, Bhupendra Nath Bose and Madan Mohan Malaviya. Malaviya was also the founder of the Banaras Hindu University. Among the presidents of India associated with this university are Rajendra Prasad and Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, and Pranab Mukherjee, who both studied and taught at affiliated colleges of the university. The former vice president of India, Mohammad Hamid Ansari studied here, as did a former deputy prime minister of India, Jagjivan Ram. Many governors of Indian states studied here, including the first Indian governors of Bihar and Odisha, Lord Satyendra Prasanna Sinha of Raipur, Chandeshwar Prasad Narayan Singh, governor of the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, and Banwari Lal Joshi, the former governor of Delhi, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh and current governor of Uttarakhand. The former ruler of the Indian princely state of Coochbehar, Maharaja Nripendra Narayan Bhupa Bahadur as well as Patayet Sahib Maharajkumar Bhoopendra Narayan Singh Deo of Saraikela were also alumni of this university, as were colonial-era prime ministers Albion Rajkumar Banerjee of Kashmir and A.K. Fazlul Huq of undivided Bengal. Among its former students are eight chief ministers of West Bengal, three chief ministers each of Assam and Bihar, two chief ministers of Meghalaya, and two chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh,each chief minister of Manipur, Nagaland and Sikkim. Among the chief justices of the Supreme Court of India are Bijan Kumar Mukherjea, Sudhi Ranjan Das, Amal Kumar Sarkar, Ajit Nath Ray, Sabyasachi Mukharji and Altamas Kabir. Others have also served as judges in the Supreme Court, and as chief justices and judges in state high courts.
Heads of state from other countries associated with the university include four presidents of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Mohammad Mohammadullah, Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem, Abdus Sattar, three prime ministers of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Muhammad Mansur Ali, and Shah Azizur Rahman, three prime ministers of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Bogra, Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy, and Nurul Amin, the first premier of Burma under British rule, Ba Maw, the first president of Nepal, Ram Baran Yadav and the first democratically elected prime minister of Nepal, Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala, and his successor Tulsi Giri.