Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar has been appointed as the chairperson of the University Grants Commission (UGC).
The search and selection committee was considering Kumar and two others – Prof Nitin R Karmalkar, vice chancellor of Pune University, and Prof Avinash Chandra Pandey, Director of Inter-University Accelerator Centre (IUAC) – for the key post.
Kumar took over as JNU VC in January 2016. His five-year-tenure as the Vice Chancellor of JNU ended on 26 January but the Ministry of Education allowed him to hold the position until a successor was found.
The vacancy for the post of chairperson arose after Prof DP Singh, who had taken charge in 2018, announced his retirement at the age of 65.
Kumar, who is a prominent name in the field of engineering, has faced backlash for controversies in the JNU’s campus unrest involving a section of the students.
More About Kumar
Kumar had obtained MS(EE) and PhD (EE) degrees from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras.
Kumar was a visiting faculty and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, between July 1994 and December 1995.
Later, he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Kumar became an Associate Professor there in July 1997 and a Professor in January 2005.
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