IIT Madras was again chosen as the top institution to study in the country while Bangalore based Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and IIT Delhi bagged the second and the third spot in the India Rankings 2020, the HRD ministry’s rankings of Indian colleges and universities.
Seven IITs, including the ones in Bombay, Kharagpur, Kanpur, Guwahati and Roorkee, featured in the overall top ten list with the IISc, Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Benaras Hindu University (BHU) being the three non-IITs who made it.
HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank announced the results of the rankings which are brought out every year by his ministry. IIT Madras was the top institution in the overall category in last year’s rankings as well.
Category wise, among universities, the top three positions went to IISc, JNU and BHU followed by Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore (fourth), Jadavpur University (fifth), University of Hyderabad (sixth), Calcutta University (seventh) and Manipal Academy of Higher Education (eighth positions).
Savitribai Phule Pune University was at the ninth position while Jamia Millia Islamia stood at the tenth spot.
Delhi University and Anna University, which have been chosen to be a part of the government’s Institute of Eminence programme, stood at the eleventh and twelfth spots.
Among management institutions, the dominance of IIMs was similar to dominance of the IITs in the overall list (and also in the list of engineering institutions).
The three older IIMs, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta garnered the top three spots. The IIM at Lucknow followed by IIT Kharagpur took the fourth and fifth spots. IIM Kozhikode and Indore were sixth and seventh. IIT Delhi got the eighth spot in the discipline of management. Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur and Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon got the ninth and tenth spots.
In the colleges list, those from Delhi, especially the women’s colleges stood out.
Miranda House was chosen as the country’s best college followed by Lady Shri Ram College for Women. The Hindu College stood at the third position followed by its north campus neighbour St Stephen’s. Presidency College from Chennai stood at the fifth spot followed by Loyola College in the same city. St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata stood seventh while Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, Howrah was chosen as the eight best college in the country in the HRD ministry rankings.
Hans Raj College Delhi was at the ninth position while PSGR Krishnammal College for Women, Coimbatore stood at the tenth position.
In the Engineering category it was IITs all the way. The IITs at Madras, Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Indore bagged nine of the ten positions. NIT Tiruchirappalli was the only non-IIT in the list.
Among medical institutions,AIIMS Delhi was chose the top college followed by PGI, Chandigarh and CMC, Vellore. National Law School, Bengaluru was chosen as the best Law college followed by National Law University, Delhi and NALSAR, Hyderabad.
In the pharmacy category, the topper was Jamia Hamdard in Delhi followed by Panjab University, Chandigarh. The National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Mohali stood in the third position.
The IITs of Roorkee and Kharagpur and NIT Calicut were the top three architecture colleges. Delhi’s Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences, Manipal Institute of Dental Sciences and Dr D Y Patil Vidyapeeth Pune were the top three in the newly introduced Dental Colleges category.
Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras, said, “We are delighted to maintain our top position for the fifth time running (in the engineering category) and ever since the NIRF rankings were launched. This is the result of the excellent work of our faculty, students and staff, and we look forward to continue on the path of excellence in the coming years and make a mark nationally and internationally.”
HRD minister Pokhriyal said that these rankings acts as a guide to students for selection of universities based on a set of criteria and helps universities to improve their performance. Minister of State for HRD Sanjay Dhotre said participation in such ranking framework shows the confidence of the institution.
The ranking framework evaluates institutions on five parameters: Teaching, Learning and Resources (TLR), Research and Professional Practice (RP), Graduation Outcomes (GO), Outreach and Inclusivity (OI) and Perception (PR).
A total 3771 institutions offered themselves for ranking under “Overall”, category-specific and domain-specific rankings for India Rankings 2020. In all, 5805 applications for ranking were made by these 3771 unique applicant institutions, which include 294 Universities, 1071 Engineering Institutions, 630 Management Institutions, 334 Pharmacy Institutions, 97 Law Institutions, 118 Medical Institutions, 48 Architecture Institutions and 1659 General Degree Colleges. Number of unique applicants to India Rankings have increased from 3127 in 2019 to 3771 in 2020. 
