Jadavpur University

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Jadavpur University
Motto To know is to grow
Established 1905
Type State University
Chancellor Governor of West Bengal
Principal A N Basu
Faculty 500 (approx)
Undergraduates 5000 (approx)
Postgraduates 4000 (approx)
Location Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Campus Jadavpur (Urban; 58 acres) and Salt Lake (Suburban; 26 acres)
Website http://www.jadavpur.edu/

Jadavpur University (Bengali: যাদবপুর বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়) (JU) is a premier educational and research institution in India. It is located in Kolkata, West Bengal and comprises two campuses - the main campus at Jadavpur and the new campus at Salt Lake.Jadavpur University is also closely affiliated to leading research institutes like the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science and the Central Glass and Ceramics Research Institute.

Four specialized institutes are affiliated to Jadavpur University -

  • Jadavpur Vidyapith College of Education
  • Institute of Business Management
  • Shrimati J. D. Birla Institute
  • Marine Engineering and Research Institute

Contents

[edit] History

Golden Jubilee logo of Jadavpur University
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Golden Jubilee logo of Jadavpur University

The National Council of Education (NCE) was set up in 1906 to impart literary, scientific and technical education on a national basis. The year was significant in Bengal's history as the province had just been partitioned by the British rulers into East Bengal on the one hand (the area that was eventually to become Bangladesh in 1971) and West Bengal and Orissa on the other. This was an extermely unpopular move by the British and was reversed in 1911, but much damage had been done to Bengal's sensibilities in the meantime. In 1906, a group of Bengali intellectuals including Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo Ghosh, Raja Subodh Chandra Mullick and Brajendra Kishore Roychowdhury decided that they would protest the partition of Bengal by setting up an institution that would challenge British rule by offering education to the masses 'on national lines and under national control'. The NCE was set up with Rash Behari Ghosh as its first president.

Almost on the same day a rival organisation, the Society for Promotion of Technical Education in Bengal, was set up by Taraknath Palit,[1] and under it the Bengal Technical Institute came into being on 25 July 1906. The two organisations fought it out for a few years until the SPTE was amalgamated with the NCE in 1910 and the Bengal Technical Institute passed into its hands. In 1921 the Institute became the first in India to introduce Chemical Engineering as a discipline. By 1940, the institute was virtually functioning as an independent university, and after Indian Independence in 1947, the Government of West Bengal, with the concurrence of the Government of India, enacted the necessary legislation to convert the institute into Jadavpur University with full autonomy on (December 24, 1955). Since then the university has observed this date in its calendar as Convocation Day.

The emblem of Jadavpur University was designed by the Bengal Renaissance artist Nandalal Bose. As the university celebrated its Golden Jubilee on December 24, 2005, a special emblem (see above) was created to commemorate the occasion. This date was also the centenary of the National Council of Education.[2]

[edit] Special areas and disciplines

The University specialises in Oceanography, Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering. It is also one of the only three institutions in eastern India which offers courses and undertakes research in Architecture and Planning. The university has a number of departments recognised by the University Grants Commission (UGC) as Centres for Advanced Study in their respective disciplines, notably English, Comparative Literature and Philosophy. It has been awarded a five star rating by the UGC and was recognised as a University with Potential for Excellence (UPE) in 2005.

In collaboration with the Indian Statistical Institute, the university developed the ISIJU, India's first indigenously made transistor-driven computer, in 1966. This was at the frontier of the technology then available and in recognition the UGC sanctioned a computer centre at part of the electronics department, one of the earliest in the country. In 1988, this finally became an independent department.

The university has received several major grants in recent times to develop new areas and technologies such as cognitive science and mobile computing. Other areas of emphasis include nanotechnology, archives and records, media and communication, and history of the book.

The School of Cultural Texts and Records has been archiving the papers, memoirs and manuscripts of various noteworthy litterateurs such as Sudhindranath Datta, the editor of the early twentieth century periodical Parichaya, and Buddhadeva Basu, a noted Bengali poet, and will be creating digital archives of many important cultural and historical documents. It is also building an archive of early recorded classical hindustani music.

The university has one of the earliest (1989) schools of women's studies in an Indian university, which has recently introduced an M.Phil programme.

The university also houses the eastern regional centre of the National Afforestation and Eco-Development Board of India.

[edit] Facts and figures

Jadavpur University is home to over 5000 undergraduate and over 4000 graduate students.It is one of the premier institutions of the country in the fields of technology and science.It comprises of three faculties:

  • Faculty of Engineering and Technology
  • Faculty of Science
  • Faculty Of Arts

It hosts 34 departments under these three faculties besides 16 interdisciplinary schools and 21 research centres. Admission to the Engineering faculty departments is on the basis of a Joint Entrance Examination (WB-JEE) conducted by Government of West Bengal that can be taken by all Indian nationals. Lateral admission through other entrance examinations have also started from 2005.

[edit] Notable past / present faculty

[edit] Distinguished alumni & students

  • Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri - eminent political scientist and author, fellow of the University of London
  • Swadesh Chatterjee (Instrumentation Engineering) - President, IAFPE & Padma Bhushan awardee
  • Rituparno Ghosh (Economics) - Film director and National Award winner
  • Santanu Das (Electronics & Telecommunications) - Founder and CEO, TranSwitch Corp
  • Asoke K. Laha (Electronics & Telecommunications) - Founder and Vice-President, Interra IT
  • Bhaskar Chaudhuri (Pharmacy) - CEO, Dow Pharmaceutical Sciences, USA
  • Moon Moon Sen (Comparative Literature) - Actress in Bengali and Hindi films.

[edit] Campus life

Aurobindo Bhavan - the administrative block on main campus
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Aurobindo Bhavan - the administrative block on main campus

Jadavpur University is one of the few universities in Kolkata to have two distinct walled off campuses, in Jadavpur and Bidhan Nagar. The Jadavpur campus is pressed for space, but is green with ponds, playing fields, and tree groves. It also has a windmill and limited residential space for staff and students.

Jadavpur University is a teaching institution and the interaction between students and teachers is close and informal. Classes are comparatively small for an Indian university and contact hours are abundant. Recently the arts and science faculties were converted to the semester system of teaching (the engineering faculty was already following it) and with the demise of the old annual system a much greater flexibility in course design and subjects covered was possible.

The social life of Jadavpur University revolves around its canteens, common rooms and student clubs. The Photography Club, Mountaineering Club and the Quiz Club (Enquiry) are integral parts of JU culture. Jadavpur University is also host to one of the oldest college cultural festivals in Eastern India, "Sanskriti." The three back to back cultural festivals of the three faculties which take place in March, are unique among college cultural festivals for their showcasing of Bengali culture. The recently started Jadavpur University Open Quiz - Qriosity - is the largest University invitation quiz for schools and colleges in Kolkata.

The Jadavpur University lake or "Jheel", with the University guest house at one end
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The Jadavpur University lake or "Jheel", with the University guest house at one end

The Jadavpur University canteens - Milanda's Canteen, Amenities Centre (AC) canteen, CET Canteen, Staff Canteen and Ashirbaad Canteen - have added to the Bengali gastronomy by the introduction of "Dhoper chop", a term which is used today both for an item of food, or to signify "bluff" or "blarney". The dish is in essence a sort of scotch egg --- except that it contains half an egg, the other half being made up of mashed potatoes, vegetables and bread crumbs.

The Salt Lake campus is smaller, and is host to the curtain-raiser (opening programme) of the university cultural festival Sanskriti. It is home to five of the engineering departments of the university and has a cricket field on campus maintained by the CAB (Cricket Association of Bengal) on which Ranji Trophy matches are played during cricket season.

Student politics is an integral part of campus life in JU. Students are vocal about their rights, often leading to standoffs with authorities. In the science and engineering faculties, the students have political organizations unaffiliated with any major political party, We The Independents (WTI) and Democratic Students' Front (DSF) respectively, that run the student unions in the respective faculties. The Arts faculty students' union is presently run jointly by two warring forces, the Students Federation of India (which is the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)) and Forum for Arts students, (which is an unaffiliated organization).

Jadavpur University also has a very distinctive lingo or campus-speak.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Haridas Mukherjee and Uma Mukherjee, The Origins of the National Education Movement (Calcutta: National Council of Education, 1992)
  2. ^ Ananda Lal, Rama Prasad De, and Amrita Sen, The Lamp in the Lotus: A History of Jadavpur University (Calcutta: Jadavpur University, 2005)

[edit] External links

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