IIT-B No.1 institute in India but not among world’s top 200 ~ RECENT TOP NEWS : Latest News Headlines, Current Live Breaking News from India & World

Mumbai: For the first time, IIT-Bombay has been ranked the country's topmost institute in the annual QS World Rankings Survey.

Though the Powai institute has not made it to the top 200 institutes and universities globally, it jumped 11 positions to get the highest rank—222— among Indian institutes. Delhi led the list till last year; it has now slipped to 235.

While two other IITs— Kanpur and Madras—too dropped in the ranking, Kharagpur jumped 22 positions to 324. Universities of Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata, too, saw their ranks jump.

Devang Khakhar, director, IIT-Bombay, said the institute ranks among the top 60 institutes in engineering and technology faculty. He said it will continue to rigorously participate in the global ranking process and provide them with first-hand information. "We are not chasing ranks, but we will continue to have our own vision and work on it, and the ranks will come. IIT-B used to get the highest rank in the country till a few years ago, but it dropped after student strength increased and the faculty-student ratio was affected. Now, we have filled the faculty positions, so the score has improved," said Khakhar. He further said the institute is now devising a national ranking system, in which all institutes are expected to participate.

Though the institute claimed to be at the top a few years ago, the QS release states IIT-Delhi has been the Indian leader since 10 years and the Mumbai institute has replaced it only now. QS is a British agency that releases annual surveys on educational institutes.

IIT-B is now among the top 60 in the world in the QS international survey of employers and 160th in the academic survey, up 23 places. "But the institute will have to work on research citations and the proportion of international students and faculty, if it is to break into the leading positions," said the official release.

Dr Karthick Sridhar, vice-chairman, Indian Centre for Assessment and Accreditation, said in a release, "Citations (a measure to check the quality of research papers published) continue to be a challenge for most Indian institutions. None of these are in the top 300 in the world on this measure, and five of the top six institutes from India have a lower score than last year."

Mumbai University's rank, which was in the range of 601-650, has now jumped to 551-600. M A Khan, the registrar, said the university is looking at increasing its contribution to research by raising grants.