Talk:List of universities in India/Archive 1

Vedanta University
This line seems highly out of place, and seems like an advertisement for Vedanta University. Vedanta University, India's first world-class, multi-disciplinary university for cutting-edge research and education is being planned. I am moving it under the list of Universities in Orissa. Rahul Gaitonde 07:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Affiliated Colleges
If colleges are affiliated to universities, are they part of a university or not?Sarcelles (talk) 17:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Serial numbers?
Hi Muhandes, what about having serial number also ?-- naveenpf (talk) 07:24, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm not following. Serial numbers from where and to what purpose? --Muhandes (talk) 14:00, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If the user wants to know no of universities in Tamil Nadu or Punjab he need to manually count. it would be good if list contains serial no also --naveenpf (talk) 01:50, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

didn't see summary, my mistake ✅ -- naveenpf (talk) 02:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Page structure
Having a page which is a list of external links is strictly against WP:LINKFARM and WP:EL. Instead of a "Website" column, there should be a "references" column with sources for the facts in each entry. Sources should be brought at least for the year of establishment and the type. I will start to work on this but it is going to be tons of work, I hope someone else would like to help. --Muhandes (talk) 14:17, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * A good example is Cscr-featured.png of universities in Bangladesh which is a featured list in spite of having external links to respective universities. – ∃   Aditya   7   ¦  09:11, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * List of universities in Bangladesh has both a source and an external link. Sources must exist, and the external links may have been overlooked. They seem against WP:EL to me - in 2008 it might have passed, but may not pass in 2011. --Muhandes (talk) 14:00, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * So for now to maintain consistency I'll use the same format as Naveenpf is using in Kerala. - abhi (talk) 01:51, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Muhandes, I have Kerala in a different from you. which we need to follow ? we need not keep external in this list ? --naveenpf (talk) 17:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think sources are a must. I think sources are making the external links redundant, and against WP:EL. That's my opinion, but I'm not sure Aaditya 7 agrees. --Muhandes (talk) 17:50, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I can agree with you; since internal links of University article will have its external link :-) --naveenpf (talk) 17:58, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi abhi,adithya can you please reply on this ? we will close this thread and start working on the article --naveenpf (talk) 03:38, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I suggest we keep follow Bangladesh model - website as a external link but also a source cited next to university name. - abhi (talk) 03:58, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * When Cscr-featured.png of universities in Bangladesh became a featured list on 8 April 2008 it already had the external links to websites. I don't think the guidelines at WP:EL were started after April 2008. Even if it did how can a featured list not be reviewed for two long years? And these links are not at the expense of references which can be put beside the names. Imagine how helpful it will be to readers to have everything at one place:Article links, References to verify, External links to easily read more about the institutions or conduct a survey. It will be cumbersome to read each article to find its website. Featured list criteria highlights the most important criteria a list must satisfy to be featured. Featured list criteria, List and Manual of Style (stand-alone lists) do not put the WP:EL criteria as one of the most important conditions for a list to be featured. Hey, let us do like Cscr-featured.pngges of the University of Cambridge&mdash;put the external links as references in Ref coloumn. See how many external links they have put as references in Cscr-featured.png of City University of New York institutions. Let the references already there be as they are. We may like to use and . Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. –  ∃   Aditya   7   ¦  05:11, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ on the edit notice. --Muhandes (talk) 06:43, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Let us follow this updated format: † granted university/deemed university status ✩ Institute of National Importance

University Type - Autonomous and Deemed
moved here There are certain Autonomous Institutes (like IISER, IIFM etc) which is different than Deemed University status. For summary table are we counting them as deemed universities? or else we should modify the summary table with a column for Autonomous institutes. I think IIMs will also fall under this category. - abhi (talk) 07:28, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm really not sure. Lists require clear inclusion criteria. For now the criteria we are using is appearing in either Central, State, Deemed, Private, IIT, or NIT lists. This does not cover all, so lets list all of those it doesn't cover, and decide later what to do with them. I started a list below. If you have a strong opinion or a strong source about one of them add it at the line itself. --Muhandes (talk) 15:14, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * All India Institute of Medical Sciences
 * Indian Institute of Forest Management
 * Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal (listed as autonomous, IISER)
 * National Institute of Fashion Technology
 * National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research
 * Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (seems to be affiliated to University of Delhi so probably should not be included)
 * We ourselves need to find these things from the various Acts. All the concerned acts are given at Acts and Subordinate Legislation on education.nic.in website. Does The University Grants Commission Act, 1956 specify the difference between autonomous and deemed statuses? – ∃   Aditya   7   ¦  15:29, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey, take a look at the Resources table above. It turns out, there are more autonomous institutions than we thought! – ∃   Aditya   7   ¦  05:12, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

yeah, in Madhya Pradesh alone I found 5 autonomous institutes. I suggest we should consider it as a separate category for summary table and article overview section. - abhi (talk) 05:27, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Are these even considered universities? Notice that the page has top level sections 1. Universities & Higher Education 2. Technical Education 3. Languages ... so it doesn't actually list anything but the central ones as universities. Also, it does not list all of the institutes in the list above, so it does not solve the problem, who manages these? It adds the following:
 * IIMs (13)
 * IIITs (4)
 * IISc and IISERs (6)
 * NITTTRs (4)
 * Other (8) (North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology, School of Planning and Architecture are also deemed)
 * Sanskrit & Vedic Institutions (4) (Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth and Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapith are also deemed)
 * Do you people feel these should be included? I don't especially mind. --Muhandes (talk) 06:32, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we should include them, just as we included IITs and NITs. These autonomous institutes award same degrees as usual universities - IISERs - M.Sc & PhD; IISc M.Sc, M.Tech, PhD; NITTTR - M.Tech. need to check others. So I'll say if a institute awards Masters/Bachelors degrees we can consider it equivalent to university. - abhi (talk) 02:49, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I've added IIMs to the lead and changed the order a bit. I suppose we have agreement on IIITs and IISERs as well, and I'll add the rest later. I'm not sure about the rest so I'll wait with them. I suggest (very strongly) that the type of university listed will still be IIT/NIT/IIM etc., and we only use "Autonomous" as type where there is no other type available at the lead. A more accurate type, I think, is more helpful to the reader. --Muhandes (talk) 18:50, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, for IITs the Type be 'Autonomous IIT', similarly for NITs it be 'Autonomous NIT'. Let the word autonomous be there. The type of autonomous institutions is incomplete without autonomous. As far as accuracy is concerned 'Autonomous' is far more accurate than mere IIT/NIT. Only IIT or NIT as the type doesn't make any sense at all. It is already evident that they are IIT/NIT from the name itself. What new thing does the type tell then? Muhandes, don't underestimate us. Read this. – ∃   Aditya   7   ¦  05:34, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not agree. I think for IITs and NITs since there is a separate govt act present we should categorize them as 'Institute of National Importance', we should only use legal terms. So as Muhandes suggested for Institutes where separate status does not exist we can simply tag as 'Autonomous'. - abhi (talk) 05:49, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Why don't you understand? IIT/NIT is not the type, it is the name. They were formed off of an act is no reason to call their name as their type. The acronyms IIT/NIT are meaningless as far as legality is concerned. You either call them individually as IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi or you call all of them as Institutes formed under the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 or you call the act as Institutes of Technology Act, 1961. Act it is a law. Institutes other than IITs too are governed by laws (Acts), then you should write the names of each institution as their type. There are many such laws at the state levels too which were created for special institutions. For example, the Delhi University was formed off of the Delhi University Act, 1922. Wouldn't it be ridiculous if you are going to call the type of Delhi University as Delhi University? And Institute of National Importance is not the type. It is defined as just another name given to a particular set of institutions, like calling them good. You cannot say the type of these institutes is good and that of others is not good. Folks, don't get succumbed to your intuitions. – ∃   Aditya   7   ¦  06:39, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Aditya I am not saying that we should put IIT/NIT as 'Type' but if Indian government classifiesthese institutes separately then so should we. I am not going by my intuition its a standard classification. This is just the same way as we were using this list from UGC to list state universities. Let me know if you still think INI cannot be a separate university type, if not then what according to you will be proper category for IITs, NITs and others listed in this list - abhi (talk) 07:05, 1 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I see Aaditya's point. If I understand correctly, Aaditya is saying Autonomous is the type, and IIT is a subgroup of the type, which was formed by a specific act. It's not the same as INIs since INIs aren't even a sub-group - they are completely in parallel, but it is still not really a type. However, I think the subgroup should be mentioned as it gives more context and connects better with the lead. "Autonomous (IIT)" is quite lengthy, especially for amendment IITs (there is currently a huge difference, amendment IITs aren't officially IITs yet at all) which would become "Autonomous (IIT - amendment)" or some such. I see two easy ways out. One is to change the column to Type/Group. The second is to add an explaining sentence - "for Autonomous institutions the type listed is the group of institute is member of, or "Autonomous" where it is not a member of a group". How about these solutions? We can also use both for even more clarity.--Muhandes (talk) 08:51, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I just saw demo above how it looks when written as "Autonomous IIT" and it's not as bad as I thought it would look. If you think this is OK as a type I'd also accept it as compromise. Maybe "Autonomous IIT$A$" for amendment IITs (of course with a footnote). --Muhandes (talk) 08:57, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
 * But again 'Autonomous IIT' is not even a proper term/classification in use. Won't this be original research?? Usually media, govt sites and these institutes themselves use 'Institutes of National Importance'. I am not talking about act here, since NITs, IITs, ISI, AIIMS all of them are governed by separate acts but they all are counted among INIs, a status which gives them a special treatment (as compared to other autonomous institutes) from government in terms of funding and autonomy. I still think INI should be a separate type. - abhi (talk) 09:08, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I thought we clarified this already. INI cannot be used as a type because it crosses groups. For instance, not all IITs are INIs. So what are we supposed to write for those IITs which are not? INI is now marked with a star, which makes it very obvious. I see your point about "Autonomous IIT not being a proper term, it is only a compromise. I think "Autonomous (IIT)" is too long, and I prefer simply "IIT" with an explanation, as I proposed above. --Muhandes (talk) 16:20, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
 * We should first define what is type. How do we want to classify these universities? Do we want to classify these universities according to: the degrees they confer, the amount of financial aid they are granted, the degree of economic freedom they can exercise, the degree of freedom they have in deciding the syllabus, the field of expertise, the laws they are exempted from, the degree of accountability of the head of institutions, who established it, or the internal administrative system. Please read "Universities in India"; the Table 2:Present System of Universities in India- Important Features on the same page is the definitive way of classifying the universities in India. The best quick no-original-research way out is following the Table 2. – ∃   Aditya   7   ¦  18:04, 1 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Found this link here on AICTE website, it mentions all IITs as INI. I think the PDF from education.in is old and wasn't updated after creation of new IITs and NITs. Even the copy of institute of technology act is very old it doesn't even include Roorkee and Guwahati, here is the copy at IIT Roorkee website and another copy here
 * I also found this news article which clearly says until the act is amended new IITs cannot award degrees. That article is from 2008, I think act must have been amended by now. I'll keep checking if I can find latest copy of the act. - abhi (talk) 07:56, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Update - latest new articles that I found says the bill has been passed by Lok Sabha but still needs to be passed by Rajya Sabha. Even wiki page on IITs mentions the same. - abhi (talk) 08:27, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * But if you guys still don't want to use INI as type then lets use IIT as category. Problem is that all categories as defined by government are complex with sub-categories and overlaps (INI is subclass of Deemed which is subclass of Autonomous Institutes) so its always going to be hard for just three of us to simply conclude anything. This discussion can go on and on. So for now if we dont reach a agreement let us just use IITs/IIMs/NITs as type. - abhi (talk) 07:56, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ambox_warning_blue.svg Abhinay, Abhinay, Abhinay.... The article is suffering! Abhinay, IIT is the name, autonomous is the type. You are not understanding what the purpose of Type is. Abhinay did you read this before saying " 'Autonomous IIT' is not even a proper term/classification in use."? You mean to say the Ministry of Human Resource Development of India is absolutely retarded in saying that IITs are autonomous. How the hell can the type of IITs be just 'IIT'. Then the type of Delhi University must be 'Delhi University' because it is unique and also has its Act, isn't it? The type of Mumbai University must be 'Mumbai University' because it is unique, isn't it? Don't tell me Mumbai University doesn't have an Act. Abhinay, everything is governed by Acts. An obscure primary school in a corner of India is governed by Acts.. Abhinay, The type should enable world to compare all the universities in the world. Abhinay, how the hell is the world going to compare the Indian Universities with the universities across world if we say: "The type of IIMs is IIM, the type of NITs is NIT, the type of IITs is IIT, the type of Delhi University is Delhi University"? Are you really an IIT grad? Don't get offended, you still have the right to edit this article the way you want. Go ahead. I won't revert you. Everyone knows that Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that literally anyone can edit. I am going to give up on this article if I feel my efforts are proving to be futile. I may get involved again when a different group of editors take up this article. ☺ – ∃   Aditya   7   ¦  17:41, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Does Autonomous/IIT, Autonomous/NIT etc. look any better? It gives the impression of a type and a subgroup, which is, I think, what we want to convey. --Muhandes (talk) 18:05, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * ROTFL, Aditya, why are you getting so worked up. Calm down. I did read the link you have posted but probably you missed something, allow me to point it out to you:
 * The page gives a main category 'Autonomous', which has sub category 'Central Universities', 'IITs', 'IIMs', 'NITs', 'IIITs', 'IISc and IISERs'. So just as we do not use 'Autonomous Central Universities' same way we should not use 'Autonomous IITs' or 'Autonomous IIMs'. Hope I am clear so far.
 * Now for your argument against 'INI' or 'IIT' as a type - DU is a single university which is always counted in list of central universities see this whereas IITs and INI are a group of institutes which are not listed under any of the classification of universities published by government bodies. This implies DU cannot be a stand alone university type whereas IITs/IIMs/NITs or INI can be a type.
 * All I am saying is lets not waste our time on this endless discussion, there are many other universities where we are clear on the status. For these institutes if you do not want to use INI or IIT/NIT/IIM as type then best we can do is just stick with Autonomous. - abhi (talk) 19:55, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * BTW, what muhandes has used gives a better picture 'IIT✩', since the complete concept of INI is unique to India it will be anyways hard for us to do a apples to apples comparison with international universities. The best we can do is give out a clear picture of system followed in India. - abhi (talk) 20:11, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, use 'IIT/IIM/NIT/IISER/IIIT/NITTTR' as types. Because if you are using IIT/IIM as types why not IISER, IIIT and NITTTR? Or is there anything I am missing again? – ∃   Aditya   7   ¦  05:15, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I will add IISERs, IIITs and NITTTRs to the lead (hopefully I'll manage that before leaving for vacation on Wednesday). This still leaves some questions, I'll list them below. --Muhandes (talk) 06:14, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Problem with IIITs
We have a problem with IIITs - out of four, three of them are also listed as deemed. Indian Institute of Information Technology Design & Manufacturing Kancheepuram is the only one not listed as deemed. For now I removed them from the lists, until we decide how to list them. --Muhandes (talk) 15:21, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, as I said all categories have lots of overlaps and sub categories, everyday we find some new complication :)
 * For IIITs since they are not governed by a single council like IITs, I'll suggest that we consider them individually. So Indian Institute of Information Technology Design & Manufacturing Kancheepuram should be marked Autonomous and other three as Deemed. Let me know what you think. - abhi (talk) 21:32, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Works for me, I'll add the fourth and mention something in the lead. --Muhandes (talk) 06:18, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Removing IIT/NITs from Intro,
Hi all, what about removing following lines from intro ? And giving and intro for Institute of National Importance ? We will keep these lines in Institute of National Importance article ? -- naveenpf (talk) 12:52, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are a group of autonomous engineering and technology-oriented institutes with special funding and administration. The original Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 lists seven IITs.[8] Nine more are listed under the Institutes of Technology (Amendment) Act, 2010[9] which was passed by the Lok Sabha on March 24 2011[10] and is still to be adopted by the Rajya Sabha.
 * National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are a group of engineering, science, technology and management schools which were established as "Regional Engineering Colleges" and upgraded in 2003 to national status and central funding. The latest act governing NITs is the National Institutes of Technology Act, 2007 which declared them Institute of National Importance. It lists twenty NITs.[11] In 2010 the government announced plans for ten more.[12]
 * I see two problems. First, I think keeping the types exclusive has merit. Institute of National Importance (INI) is not exclusive of the other types. Second, from what I see in the official list, INI does not include the new IITs, or at least the sources provided at the article said so (I just redid that article today). Adding a footnote about INIs is a good idea though, maybe a better approach would be to add it as an additional footnote, something like ★ or ☆ ? --Muhandes (talk) 14:09, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Some more stars to choose from: ✧ ✦ ✩ ✫ ✬ ✭ ✮ ✯ ✰ ✱ ✲ ✳ ✴ ✵ ✶ ✷ ✸ ✹. ☕   –  ∃   Aditya   7   ¦  15:22, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I always say, everything worth doing, is also worth overdoing :) --Muhandes (talk) 15:32, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Since other bullet points are talking about different flavors like Central universities,State universities and so .. it would be better to place like We can keep the Institutes Act and NIT act in Institutes of National Importance articles. We not keeping any act details for other bullet points. --naveenpf (talk) 15:59, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Institutes of National Importance (INI), are group of Institutes which serves as a pivotal player in developing highly skilled personnel within the specified region of the country/state.Seven IITs, twenty 20 NITs and few other institutions are comes under this status.
 * I'm not sure I follow. I gave two reasons above why we need the bullets for IIT and NIT, even if we add one for INI. The acts are the official source for the list of IITs/NITs. I don't see how adding a bullet for INIs will change that or make those sources redundant. Anyway, we can deal with all of that later, the lists are extremely lacking now, there is still so much to do before adding INIs. --Muhandes (talk) 17:30, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, we will discuss this later--naveenpf (talk) 01:47, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Institute of National Importance is not a type of University, it is just a status. It should be replaced in the Type coloumn with the appropriate type from either Central/State/Deemed. We can indicate if it is a INI using some different symbol as proposed above. – ∃   Aditya   7   ¦  05:27, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * 100% agree, that was the point I was trying to convey. The type remains what it is, we can add additional statuses later. --Muhandes (talk) 05:29, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Are NITs/IITs really universities
I am afraid we need to move the page to List of Indian institutions of higher education, because NITs, IITs are not at all (called) 'Universities' in India. But "List of Indian institutions of higher education" will include many more colleges&mdash;actually all higher education institutes in India which will need to be broken down to different sates like List of American institutions of higher education. We need to think of a title that only the universities, NITs, IITs fit in. The current title is misleading. – ∃   Aditya   7   ¦  05:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I moved this to a separate section as it seems a separate matter
 * I am strongly against List of Indian institutions of higher education as it is too long and cumbersome, we will never be able to finish it. While NITs and IITs may not be called universities, they certainly are universities, in the sense that they are autonomous in awarding degrees, unlike colleges which must be affiliated. It might be slightly misleading to locals, but internationally I think it is correct, and it can be explained in the lead. I think it is better than the only alternative, which is to remove IITs and NITs – I think we all agree this will leave a gap. --Muhandes (talk) 06:23, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Strongly agree Muhandes -- naveenpf (talk) 06:47, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Navsari Agricultural University and Junagadh Agricultural University
I was certain Navsari Agricultural University (NAU) and Junagadh Agricultural University (JAU) were state universities. Gujarat Agricultural University was split in 2004 into four universities, Anand Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University, NAU and JAU. The other two are state universities. NAU and JAU are not listed anywhere I can find. Can anyone shed light on their situation? --Muhandes (talk) 18:05, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

List of universities in UPSC
The list is on the UPSC website. Take a look here. --RahulG (talk) 04:31, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure it is even considered a reliable source. Where is the list taken from? What are the criteria? I would not be 100% surprised if this is, in fact, an old copy of this page, brought without attribution. --Muhandes (talk) 07:26, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That's just a portal related to civil services exams, maintained by one individual. Not a reliable source. - abhi (talk) 04:55, 7 July 2011 (UTC)