RAMANUJAN COLLEGE Accredited Grade ‘A’ by NAAC 59th Annual Day & Prize Giving Ceremony March 23, 2017 ANNUAL REPORT FOUNDATION DAY AT RAMANUJAN COLLEGE Ramanujan College celebrated its Foundation Day on 22nd December, 2016, which was also the 129th birth anniversary of Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan, the greatest mathematician our country has ever had. Prof. M. L. Singla, Dean of Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi was the Chief Guest for the occasion. The eminent economist, Prof. Ram Singh from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, delivered the 4th Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan Memorial Lecture. He shared his expert insights on the topic “India: Vision 2050”. The Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) of the College also launched its first News Letter on this occasion. This Newsletter disseminates important information about the College, its activities and individual achievements of faculty members for the year 2016. Prof. Ram Singh delivering the 4th Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan Memorial Lecture RAMANUJAN COLLEGE 59th Annual Day & Prize Giving Ceremony Thursday, 23 March , 2017 Annual Report Dear friends, distinguished guests, colleagues and students, on behalf of the College I welcome you all on the auspicious occasion of the 59th Annual Day and Prize Giving Ceremony of Ramanujan College. It gives me immense pleasure to especially welcome Prof. J. P. Khurana, our distinguished chief guest and Shri Shashank, the chairman of our College as the respected guest of honour today. I also heartily welcome the esteemed members of the governing body of our College, the specially invited guests, my teaching and non-teaching colleagues, the alumni of the College present here and all the students of Ramanujan College to this formal function. Our distinguished chief guest today, Prof. Jitendra Paul Khurana is currently the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of Delhi. He is also the Director, South Campus of the University of Delhi. A professor of plant molecular biology, Prof. Khurana is an accomplished scientist having completed his post-doctoral research from the famous Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, and the Michigan State University. He had the honour of being a visiting professor at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at the Rutgers University, USA. He has served as a member in the committees of several important institutions of science and technology like the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR). Prof. Khurana has been honoured as the Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad; Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi; Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore; Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi and the Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), Italy. Prof. Khurana has been awarded the 'Tata Innovation Fellowship' by the Department of Biotechnology and, currently, he is the J.C. Bose National Fellow of the Department of Science and Technology. Sir, we are indeed privileged to have you amongst us on this special day. The chairman of the governing body of our College, Shri Shashank is an illustrious officer of the Indian Foreign Service. He retired as the Foreign Secretary of India, the highest rank in the Indian Foreign Service. In a diplomatic career spanning four decades, he has represented India as her ambassador in the countries of Denmark, Republic of Korea, Libya and Malta. Before such ambassadorial appointments, he distinguished himself with key assignments in Africa, America, Asia and Europe. He is widely regarded as an architect of India's economic diplomacy and for strengthening relationships with the nations in Africa and East Asia. He was presently a visiting professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University's School of International Studies and also served as the chairman of the Association of African Studies in India. He was the president of the Indian Council for International Cooperation and India-Republic of Korea Friendship Association. He is an advisor to several leading universities, chambers of commerce, non-governmental organizations, think tanks and corporations on international relations. Sir, we are truly honoured by your esteemed presence with us today. After the focused preparations for the NAAC Peer team visit last year, the year 2016-17 has Annual Report 2016-17 1 been a year of consolidation as well as expansion. I take this opportunity to apprise you of the many important developments that have taken place in the College since the last Annual Day. The construction of the new building of the College is going on at a hectic pace. RITES who are the project management consultants have assured that the finished building will be handed over by the middle of this year. The new building will provide thirty two rooms to be used as classrooms, laboratories, staff rooms, and a medium sized indoor auditorium. It will be supported by a gigantic service center with provision of a sewage treatment plant, electric sub-station and power generators, water storage tanks and pumps. However, it is perhaps pertinent to remind ourselves that this building is only a portion of the entire plan and layout of our College. The total project cost is about Rs. 140 crores, out of which, as of now, we could manage only Rs. 20 crores which has gone towards this part of the building construction. This building alone will not suffice for our future requirements. Hence, we earnestly request the concerned authorities to grant us funds for further construction. With the beginning of the construction of the new building of the College, special care had to be taken to ensure that construction activity did not hamper the smooth functioning of the College. We constructed new porta cabins to add eight extra rooms to the already existing porta cabins. Large areas of the College space had to be cordoned off for the purposes of safety and security. I appreciate the fact that the teachers, students and the non teaching staff have whole heartedly cooperated during this period when the construction work is going on. We feel proud that our College with modest infrastructural facilities is able to outreach and host three learning centers, namely, the University of Delhi's School of Open Learning (SOL) for about 1000 students; the Non Collegiate Women's Education Board (NCWEB) of the University of Delhi catering to about 600 students and the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) Study Center providing facilities to 1500 students. Our College is also offering coaching facilities to students for various competitive examinations for selection in banks, Staff Selection Commission (SSC) and the civil services. About 200 students are benefitting from this initiative. This year the prestigious professional course of Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS) run by the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Delhi, has been introduced as a regular undergraduate course in our College. We are one amongst the four colleges in the University of Delhi to be running the BMS course. Our College also had the distinction of being selected as the nodal center to oversee the entire admission process of Bachelor of Business Studies (BMS), Bachelor of Business Economics (BBE) and the Bachelor of Business Administration (Financial and Investment Analysis [(BBA (FIA)] courses for all the colleges of University where these courses are being offered. Almost 5,000 shortlisted candidates appeared for the selection process that included group discussion and personal interviews. The mammoth exercise involved more than hundred teachers, professionals and industry experts. The successful conduct of the entire rigorous selection process beginning with the student's registration, verification of documents, group discussion and finally the personal interviews within two hours for each individual student without any glitches is a real accomplishment, especially so because it was the first time that such a mega event was organized by the College. I congratulate the team of dedicated teachers and volunteers of the College for this remarkable achievement. 2 Ramanujan College The Deen Dayal Upadhyay Center for Knowledge Acquisition and Upgradation of Skilled Human Abilities and Livelihood (KAUSHAL Kendra), sanctioned by UGC last year has admitted its first batch of students this year. Our College, the only institution in the University of Delhi running a KAUSHAL Kendra, is offering two Bachelor of Vocation (B.Voc.) courses. They are Banking Operations and Software Development. A specially designed curriculum has been formulated with expert advice from both academic faculties and industry experts aimed at providing the students both academic and technical expertise and knowledge. Other than Management Studies, five new disciplines as honours courses were approved and sanctioned by the University of Delhi. These courses, namely, Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, Applied Psychology and Philosophy have commenced with the first year class. There is very high demand for admission in these courses as was evident from cut offs that have been higher than 90%. The honours course in Economics has been approved and will commence from the coming academic session. It is with some pride that I must say that the inspection committee from the Delhi School of Economics were greatly impressed with the infrastructure, library, e-resources, laboratory facilities, wi-fi access and the faculty of the College and expressed it in their report. With the objective of all round development of students and providing more opportunities, the College is offering add-on courses. An MOU has been signed with the software company Tally for training students on Tally ERP 9. The National Skill Development Council (NSDC) is running a course on Associate Analytics. The second batch of the three month diploma course on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in association with the Indian Accounting Association (NCR Chapter) has been started.