New Delhi: Raising awareness about initiatives and legal aid, and providing clean drinking water to backward communities near the campus and around the city of Pune.
These are among the many community-driven initiatives by students of the Vishwakarma University in Pune for which it was given the ‘Leadership and Management Team of the Year’ award at the Times Higher Education (THE) Asia Awards 2023 Wednesday.
Judges at THE Asia Awards 2023 praised the university’s “deep levels of commitment” to the community.
Besides spreading awareness about the Union law ministry’s Designing Innovative Solutions for Holistic Access to Justice (DISHA) portal, students of the university visit villages in Maharashtra and provide clean drinking water.
While the initiative for clean drinking water is overseen by the university’s Department of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, a separate department set up in 2020 is tasked with teaching students wastewater and sanitation management. This department has also set up a Water Quality Centre of Excellence, that is equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure.
The university has also set up a legal aid clinic, which provides pro bono consultation to vulnerable members of society and aims to help nearly 5,000 villagers over the next two years.
Among Indian universities that made it to the list of winners this year was the Manipal Academy of Higher Education — in the ‘Technological or Digital Innovation of the Year’ category.
Having received the award in the ‘Leadership and Management Team of the Year’ category, the Vishwakarma University became only the second Indian educational institution to take home this award after the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) won it in 2021.
India, which has traditionally been a larger contributor to the top 200 THE rankings compared to its neighbours, saw a slight boost in representation in this year’s league tables, with 18 universities making the cut — one more than last year.
IITs have, for many years, refused to participate in the rankings citing issues with the transparency of the process. The Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, which has been a regular participant and one of India’s highest-ranking universities, saw its rank dip to 48th place — its lowest since 2015, when it first made the rankings.
This year, the jury received nearly 700 entries, 200 more than 2022, despite excluding 14 previously eligible countries and territories in the Middle East, which are now part of the new THE Awards MENA. Sixteen countries or territories were represented among the submissions to the THE Asia Awards 2023 awards, of which 80 made the shortlist. Hong Kong was the biggest winner, with three of its institutions taking home awards.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)