Sometime ago, MHRD gave the Supreme Court a list of 44 deemed universities (DU) that are unfit to be universities, and should be shut down (see this post).
Apparently, it also disclosed to the Court another list of 44 DUs that have been given three years to spruce up their act, or else. See this Telegraph story by Charu Sudan Kasturi who has also reproduced the almost-doomed list.
This list includes flagship institutions of the government itself: two Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), as well as the Indian Instittute of Space Science and Technology (which, I think, is less than three years old). It also includes such well-known private institutions from Tamil Nadu as VIT, SASTRA and Sri Ramachandra Medical College (along with known-to-be-dubious ones such as Satyabama and SRM).
An interesting entry in that list is the Allahabad Agricultural Institute: Prof. Valson Thampu, Principal of St. Stephen's, got his PhD from this institution ... in theology!
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Also in The Telegraph: this story about the Bihar government's plans to regulate coaching classes in the state.
I am surprised to see institutes like SASTRA, they are doing relatively good work as far as the research is concerned. If their website is to be believed, they have very good infrastructure comparable to say IITs. In terms of infrastructure, some departments in IITs and even IISc don't deserve to have PhD students, for example what u say abt a materials dept whose XRD is down for more than 2 yrs..lol..
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