Centre appoints JNU VC Jagdesh Kumar UGC Chairman
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New Delhi: Ministry of Education has informed that controversial Vice-Chancellor of JNU, M Jagadesh Kumar, has been appointed as the Chairman of University Grants Commission (UGC) for a period of five years, PTI reported.
A ministry official said that Jagadesh's, the acting VC of JNU, tenure will be five years or until 65 years of age, whichever comes first.
The UGC Chairman's post became vacant after Prof. DP Singh retired I December 7. Also, the position of vice-chairman to UGC is currently empty.
Jagadesh's tenure as JNU VC witnessed many controversies, such as the sedition row in 2016, the lockdown of his office more than once, and in 2019, Human Resource Development minister got stuck for six hours at the JNU Convocation venue etc. It was a week after he was appointed VC here in 2016 the JNU administration had stopped an event organized against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. It kick-started some of the controversies during Jagadesh's tenure.
Jagadesh Kumar had worked as an Assistant professor at IIT Kharagpur and Associate Professor at IIT Delhi.