The visitor’s awards for the Central Universities were presented by President Pranab Mukherjee at a function held at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2015. The awards were presented in three categories ‘Best University’, ‘Innovation’ and ‘Research’.
In the function, the University of Hyderabad was presented with the best university awards for its academic excellence and overall outstanding work. Prof Vijay K Chaudhary and Dr Amita Gupta from University of Delhi were awarded under the ‘Innovation’ category for their invention of 'TB Confirm', a rapid diagnostic test for Tuberculosis. The Cosmology and Astrophysics Research Group, Centre for Theoretical Physics, Jamia Millia Islamia received the ‘Research’ award for par excellence research carried out in the field of Astrophysics and Cosmology. The research team of Jamia Millia Islamia comprised of Prof. M. Sami, Prof Sushant G Ghosh, Prof Sanjay Jhingan & Prof Anjan Ananda Sen from the faculty of the university.
The ‘Best University’ was awarded with a citation and trophy while the winners of Visitor's Award for 'Innovation' and 'Research' received a Citation and cash award of Rs one lakh.
The President had announced these awards at the Vice Chancellor’s Conference in the previous year. These awards were announced in order to promote healthy competition amongst Central Universities and to motivate them to adopt best practices from education institutes across the globe.