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University of Calcutta

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University of Calcutta

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University of Calcutta
Motto:	Advancement of Learning
Established:	January 24, 1857
Type:	Public
Chancellor:	Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Governor of West Bengal
Vice-Chancellor:	Professor Suranjan Das
Undergraduates:	100,000 [1]
Postgraduates:	5,500 [2]
Location:	Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Campus:	Urban; 12 campuses (excluding affiliated colleges)
Recognition:	National Assessment and Accreditation Council's ‘Five Star’; University Grants Commission’s ‘Centre with Potential for Excellence’
Website:	www.caluniv.ac.in

Formally established on the 24 January 1857, the University of Calcutta (also known as Calcutta University) (Bengali: কলকাতা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়), located in the city of Kolkata (previously Calcutta), India, is the first modern university in the Indian subcontinent. It is a state-government administered urban-based affiliating and research university. It has its main campuses in College Street, Rajabazar, Alipore, Hazra, South Sinthi and a host of affiliated colleges in greater Kolkata .

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History

Main article: History of University of Calcutta

University of Calcutta is the oldest of the modern universities in India.^[1] It was founded in 1857 during the administration of Lord Canning (1856–1862), the Governor General of India. 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, but at that time the plan failed to obtain the necessary approval. However, a proposal to establish two universities, one in Calcutta and the other in Bombay was later accepted in 1854 and the necessary authority was given. 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. When the university was first established it had a catchment area covering the area from Lahore to Rangoon (now in Myanmar) , and Ceylon — the largest of any Indian university.^[1]

The first Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University were Governor General Lord Canning and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Sir James William Colvile, respectively.^[2] In 1858, Joddu Nath Bose and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay became the first graduates of the university.^[3] On 30 January 1858, the Syndicate of the Calcutta University started functioning.^[3] The first meeting of the Senate was held in the Council room of the Calcutta Medical College. A temporary office of the university was started in a few rented rooms in Camac Street. For several years afterwards the meetings of the Senate and Syndicate were held in a room of the Writers' building. 244 candidates appeared for the first Entrance Examination of the university, held in March 1857 in the Town Hall of Calcutta. In 1862, a decision was taken by the Senate to construct for the university a building of its own. Accordingly, the historical Senate Hall was constructed at a cost of Rs. 2,52,221/- and inaugurated on 12 March 1873 by holding the convocation of the university.

In 1857 Nawab Jassa Singh Ahluwalia Government College in Kapurthala , Punjab province of British India became one of the first colleges to be affiliated with University of Calcutta. Later many institutions came under its jurisdiction. Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Basu became the first lady graduates of the country in 1882.^[3] The Hon'ble Justice Gooroodas Banerjee became the first Indian Vice-Chancellor of University of Calcutta in the year 1890.^[2] Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee was the Vice-Chancellor for four consecutive two-year terms (1906–1914) and a fifth two-year term (1921–23).

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Campus

Ashutosh Building at the College Street campus

The university has several campuses spread over the city of Kolkata and its suburbs. The university also has many affiliated colleges spread over the southern West Bengal. The main campus of the university, located on College Street, is spread over a small area of 2.7 acres (much less than a square kilometer).^[4] The main campus is also known as the Asutosh Siksha Prangan, and contains Darbhanga Building, Asutosh Building, Hardinge Building, and the Centenary Building.^[5] The Rashbihari Siksha Prangan (also known as University College of Science and Technology or popularly Rajabazar Science College), located on Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road, houses several scientific and technological departments, e.g., pure and applied chemistry, pure and applied physics, applied mathematics, psychology, physiology, biophysics and molecular biology, to name a few.^[5] Taraknath Siksha Prangan (also known as University College of Science or Ballygunge Science College) on Ballygunge Circular Road in the southern part of the city houses the departments of agriculture, anthropology, biochemistry, botany, genetics among others.^[5] Other campuses are Hazra Road Campus, University Press And Book Depot, Sahid Khudiram Siksha Prangan, B. T. Road Campus, Viharilal College of Home Science Campus, University Health Service, Haringhata Campus, Dhakuria Lakes (University Rowing Club) and University Ground and Tent at Maidan.^[5] The university has a plan to create a "Techno Campus", to bring together the engineering and technical departments under one roof, in Salt Lake.^[6]

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Academics

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Faculties

Darbhanga Building at the College Street campus

University of Calcutta has fifty five 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.^[7]

The faculty of Agriculture consists of the sole department of Institute of Agricultural Science and offers post graduate courses on agronomy, horticulture, Genetics & Plant Breeding and Seed Science & Technology among others.^[8] The Arts faculty consists of 21 departments offering courses on several Indian (including Sanskrit and Pali) and foreign languages, linguistics, ancient Indian history and culture, Islamic history and culture, South & South east Asian studies and many more.^[9] The departments of business management and commerce are under the faculty of Commerce, Social Welfare & Business Management. Courses on journalism and mass communication, library & information science are offered by the faculty of Education, Journalism and Library Science through three departments.^[10]

Faculty of Engineering & Technology includes the departments of applied physics, chemical engineering, chemical technology, computer science and engineering, polymer science and technology, radiophysics and electronics, and computer centre.^[11] Home science is the sole department in the faculty of Fine Arts, Music and Home Science, offering courses on subjects such as food and nutrition, human development, home science.^[12] The faculty of Law comprises only one department of law while the faculty of Science has nineteen departments. The latter faculty offers courses on traditional science subjects like physics, chemistry, botany and also on subjects like biotechnology, microbiology, bioinformatics, marine science etc.^[13]

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Education and research

Undergraduates enroll for a three-year program. Students are assigned to a major when they enter the university, and cannot change it later. Science and business disciplines are in high demand, as these fields are perceived to have better job opportunities. Most programs are organized by years, though some programs use a semester system. Most departments offer masters programs that are one or two years in duration. Research in the university is conducted in specialized institutes as well as individual departments, many of which have doctoral programs.

The university has 18 research centers, 650 teachers,^{[citation needed]} 3000 non-teaching staff and 12,400 post-graduate students.^{[citation needed]}

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A tradition of notable firsts

The Centenary Library at the College Street campus overlooking College Square. The library was built on the place of the previously existing University Senate Hall

• 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 was set up in 1835. Later it was affiliated to the university.
• The first college for women in India, the Bethune College was set up in 1879.
• The nation's first homeopathy college was established in 1880.
• The Science College was established in 1917, the first in India.
• The first blind school in India came into being in 1925.
• The first university museum in India, The Ashutosh Museum, came into being in 1937.
• The Government Arts College was established in 1951.
• The Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM) was set up in 1953 as the country's first management institute.

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Recent accreditation and recognition

• Five Star Recognition

  The university was awarded the ‘five star university’ status by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council in 2001.

• Ranking of Institute of Higher Education,Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

  The Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China recently prepared a list of the world's top 500 institutions of higher learning (universities, research institutes etc.). The complete list is now available on the internet under the heading "Academic Ranking of World Universities, 2004" (see link above). The University of Calcutta was the only multi-disciplinary university from India to appear on the list. The other institutions from India on the list, for that year, were the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

• CU gets "Potential for Excellence" tag of University Grants Commission

  On December 8, 2005, the Indian University Grants Commission declared Calcutta University as a ‘‘University with Potential for Excellence’’.

• The world's top arts and humanities universities

  On November 10, 2005, The Times Higher Education Supplement published its list of the world's top arts and humanities universities. CU, ranked 39, was the only Indian university to make it to the top 50 list in that year.

• According to the Times Higher Education - World University Rankings for the year 2007, CU was ranked between 401 - 500, among the world's top 500 universities.

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Notable alumni/faculty

Nobel Laureates:

• Rabindranath Tagore,
• Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman
• Amartya Sen,

Two former Presidents of India:

• Rajendra Prasad
• Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Other notable faculty:

• Jagadish Chandra Bose
• Prafulla Chandra Roy
• Satyendranath Bose
• Meghnad Saha

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Head of State and Prime Minister of Arzi Hukumate Azad Hind (1942-1945) and co-founder of the Indian National Army was an alumnus.

Academy Honorary Award winner Satyajit Ray and his father Sukumar Ray were among the notable alumni.

Other important political leaders of South Asia who were its alumni include:

• Jagjivan Ram, former Deputy Prime Minister of India
• Dr.Ba Maw, who in 1937, became the first Burmese premier under British rule and was head of state in the first sovereign (although pro-Japanese) government during World War II (August 1943-May 1945),
• Muhammad Ali Bogra and
• Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, both of them being former Prime Ministers of Pakistan
• Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, former President and Prime Minister of Bangladesh
• Abdus Sattar, former President of Bangladesh
• Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala, former Prime Minister and senior politician of Nepal
• Hamoodur Rahman, former Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Pakistan and Former Vice Chancellor, Dhaka University
• Romanian-American religious scholar and philosopher Mircea Eliade studied at the University in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
• In 1883 Kadambini Ganguly (nee Basu) and Chandramukhi Basu became the first women graduates from the University. In the process, they became the first female graduates of the British Empire.
• Kadambini Ganguly also went on to be the first lady physician to be trained in the European system of medicine in South Asia. In 1886, she received her medical degree from the University.
• Chandramukhi Basu later became the principal of Bethune College, thus becoming the first female administrator of an undergraduate academic institution in South Asia.
• Kamini Roy, first female honours graduate in the British Empire, first feminist author in India
• Upendranath Brahmachari, renowned physician and nominee for the Nobel prize in 1929 in the category of physiology and medicine
• Binay Ranjan Sen, former ambassador of India to the USA, Italy and Yugoslavia, Japan, and Mexico and former Director General, Food and Agriculture Organization, UNO
• Suniti Kumar Chatterjee - brilliant student and alumnus, later National Professor.
• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, noted deconstructionist, feminist, university distinguished professor at Columbia University
• Nirad C. Chaudhuri, commentator of culture, Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire

For a fuller list of the University's famous alumni, see the List of University of Calcutta people.

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See also

• List of universities in India

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Notes

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External links

• Official website University of Calcutta
• Official Website Department of Business Management
• Good source of information
• From Banglapedia.com
• From Encyclopedia Britannica
• University of Calcutta - Calcutta, West Bengal Alumni Registry
• Serampore College 1
• Serampore College 2
• Applied Physics Alumni Association
• extended history