JNU VC M Jagadesh Kumar appointed as UGC head – Times of India

“The Central government has appointed M Jagadesh Kumar as UGC chairman for a period of five years or till he attains the age of 65 years, whichever is the earliest,” said a senior MoE official.

The post of the UGC chairperson fell vacant on December 7, 2021 after professor D P Singh, who had taken charge in 2018, resigned upon turning 65. The post of the vice-chairman of the higher education regulator is also vacant.
Kumar is currently holding the charge as acting VC of JNU after his five-year term expired last year. He is also the chairperson of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council. The ministry is yet to appoint his successor at JNU.

On his appointment, Kumar told the TOI: “As chairman, UGC, this is a great opportunity for me to work for the young minds of our country in higher educational institutes. My immediate focus is going to be speedy implementation of National Education Policy, enabling research and innovation ecosystem in HEIs and making higher education more inclusive and accessible using technology. I look forward to working with students, teachers and heads of higher educational institutions across the country.”

From the sedition row of 2016 and lockdown of his office multiple times to then HRD Minister getting stuck for over six hours at the venue of JNU’s convocation in 2019, Kumar’s tenure as the VC of the university has been marred by controversies.

Kumar, who was made the Vice Chancellor in January 2016, had his first brush with controversy as the VC just a week after his appointment when students locked horns with the administration over holding of an event against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

During his tenure at JNU, the university launched its management and engineering programmes and also passed the proposal of setting up of a medical school. The university has been ranked the second best in research by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF).

Widely regarded for his knowledge in electronic engineering and associated areas, Kumar obtained MS (EE) and PhD (EE) degrees from the department of electrical engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.

He has previously worked as Assistant professor at IIT-Kharagpur and Associate Professor at IIT-Delhi.