The story so far: For five years, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has maintained its dominance as the top-ranked higher-education institute in India. Other IITs follow suit, holding seven out of the top 10 positions in the ‘Overall Category’ of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2023, released this week. The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi (AIIMS) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have also been consistently placed in the top 10.
The eighth edition of NIRF, released by the Ministry of Education, is an assessment of universities and colleges in India, evaluating institutions on weighted variables: student strength, faculty qualifications, infrastructure and the number of economically and socially deprived students. The NIRF rankings come amid concerns surrounding caste discrimination and lack of mental health infrastructure in top-ranking institutes. IIT Madras saw a fourth case of student death by suicide in April, while Darshan Solanki’s death at IIT Bombay raised questions about institutionalised caste discrimination.
