It’s a positive development in the national interest that the EW league table of private multidisciplinary universities is lenghtening every year. They are valuable national assets more likely to produce inventors and innovators urgently required by the Indian economy

One of the many errors of control-and-command politicians and bureaucrats, aka the neta-babu brotherhood, who imposed Soviet-inspired central planning upon the Indian economy after independence, was to discourage private initiatives in higher education. According to dominant socialist mantra of the time, private capitalists who established HEIs (higher education institutions) would mislead youth away from the socialist, to the capitalist road. Although Article 19 of the Constitution permitted citizens to pursue any trade, profession or vocation, in effect this fundamental right was nullified by stringent licensing of industry, business and education.

The few private HEIs such as the Manipal Academy of Higher Education and Birla Institute of Technology & Science established by nationalist philanthropists like G.D. Birla and determined educationists such as the late T.M.A Pai (1898-1979) who promoted the Kasturba Medical College, Manipal despite every discouragement of government, were not permitted until recently to describe themselves as universities. Even to this day, they are obliged to add the suffix “deemed-to-be-university” and are not permitted to affiliate undergrad colleges.

Fortunately after belated liberalisation and deregulation of the Indian economy engineered by the late, unlamented Prime Minster P.V. Narasimha Rao, the shackles that bound the education sector for almost half a century, were loosened. In the new millennium after some unsung lawyer discovered that since education is in the Concurrent List of the Constitution with state governments equally empowered to legislate greenfield private universities, several private universities with globally benchmarked infrastructure, high-quality faculty, and contemporary, industry-linked curriculums, have mushroomed across the country.

Inevitably the neta-babu brotherhood and left-liberal academics — reluctant to acknowledge the dismal failure of Nehruvian socialism — are resentful of India’s new genre private universities. According to woke opinion, they are elitist, exclusive and unaffordable by the great majority of the citizenry.

However the country’s fast-expanding middle class has welcomed them as a more grounded alternative to American Ivy league, British and Commonwealth HEIs which charge foreign students higher tuition fees than payable by indigenous students. Moreover, most left academics fudge the reality that the actual per-student tuition cost of higher education provision (paid by the public exchequer) is greater or on a par with private universities.

Against this backdrop and in the interest of sharply raising academic standards in higher education, your editors have unambiguously welcomed the belated arrival of new genre privately-promoted universities and HEIs on the education scene. Less bureaucratic and unencumbered by multiple objectives, India’s latter-day private universities driven by public demand are multiplying. An even more positive development is that all high-potential private universities are obliged to transform into multidisciplinary institutions as mandated by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. In the pre-reform era as evidenced by the promotion of IITs and IIMs by the Central government, there was myopic tendency to promote specialised single discipline HEIs. Similarly, a large number of private single discipline engineering and medical colleges and universities were licensed. The NEP 2020 mandate for all universities to begin the process of transforming into multidisciplinary HEIs is welcome, because a university is by definition (‘universe’) an institution that offers higher education across several disciplines and subjects.

Therefore, it’s a welcome development in the national interest that the EducationWorld league table of private multidisciplinary universities is lengthening every year. In 2024-25, the EW league of sufficiently well-known universities (HEIs evaluated by less than 20 sample respondents are not included in EW league tables) comprised 124 institutions. This year’s league table of India’s most admired private multidisciplinary universities includes 152 institutions.

That said, it’s hardly surprising that for the fourth year in succession, Amity University, Noida (AU, estb.2005), intensively promoted on national television and in the media, is ranked India’s #1 private multidisciplinary university with top scores on four of 10 parameters of higher education excellence.

This year’s sample respondents awarded AU highest scores under the parameters of competence of faculty, research and innovation, industry placements and leadership and a total score of 1,157 out of a maximum possible 1,300. AU is followed by the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) at #2 and Ashoka University, Sonipat #3. The Top 5 table is completed by Shiv Nadar University, Gautam Buddha Nagar (UP) which has been awarded a big promotion to #4 this year (cf. #7 in 2024-25) and NMIMS Deemed University, Mumbai #5 (6).

Dr. Atul Chauhan, an alumnus of University College London, the London School of Economics, and Chancellor of AU and Chief Executive of the Amity Group (estb.1994) which comprises 11 universities, 26 K-12 schools and 30 other education institutions in India and abroad, is delighted this new genre multi-campus university has retained its #1 ranking, because it is the “outcome of the hard work we have put in to maintain our top rank”. However Chauhan is especially pleased with the top scores awarded to AU under the parameters of competence of faculty and research and innovation.

“In Stanford University’s latest annual survey of the world’s best 2 percent scientists, 57 AU faculty have been included, more than any Indian university. Moreover in 2024, AU was granted registration of 500 patents of which 100 have been commercialised for which we were awarded Best University for Strong IP Ecosystem Award of Assocham 2024, and Best Patents Portfolio Award at the 10th CII Industrial Intellectual Property Awards 2024. It’s also noteworthy that 40 life sciences and biotechnology researchers who have returned to India under the Ramalingaswami Re-Entry Fellowship initiative of the Government of India to attract highly skilled Indian researchers in life sciences and biotechnology working abroad have opted to work with us in AU. I am surprised that under the parameter of Internationalism, AU hasn’t got top score. We have 15 campuses abroad, and 400 Indian business management case studies prepared by our Amity Business School faculty have been purchased by American Ivy League universities to be taught in their B-schools,” says Chauhan.

Responding to the charge that AU owes its consistent #1 institutional ranking to the university’s sustained and unprecedented multi-media advertising, Chauhan explains that the strategy was to impact the young (estb.2005) greenfield varsity upon the public in a “compressed time-frame”, an objective that has been “satisfactorily attained”. Currently AU has an aggregate enrolment of 30,000 students mentored by 2,000 faculty and the Amity Group comprising 26 K-12 schools and 11 universities 200,000 students and 6,000 faculty. “Institutional advertising is a two-edged sword. Self-confidence is necessary because claims made in public advertisements are open to contradiction,” adds Chauhan.

There are few changes in the seating order of this year’s league table of India’s best private multidisciplinary universities compared with 2024-25 with the Top 3 — Amity, Manipal and Ashoka — retaining their ranks. However this year, the low-profile Shiv Nadar University, aka Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence (SNU), Gautam Buddha Nagar (UP) is awarded a big promotion from # 7 in 2024-25 to top table at #4, and the Mumbai-based Narsee Monji Institute of Management Studies from #6 to #5. The Coimbatore-based Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University and ICFAI University, Hyderabad have had to cede rank this year.

“Although I believe that SNU deserves higher rank, the EW perceptions survey seems to have been conducted rationally and with due diligence, so I have to accept the verdict and resolve to make greater effort to improve our future ranking,” says Dr. Ananya Mukherjee, appointed Vice Chancellor of SNU in 2022 following a global search. An economics alumna of Jadavpur University, Calcutta with a Ph D from the University of Southern California, Mukherjee has brought a wealth of academic and institutional management experience to SNU, having previously served as Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at York University, Toronto, and Provost and Vice-President Academic, University of British Columbia — Canada’s largest universities — for almost three decades.

Mukherjee is surprised by the relatively low score awarded to SNU under the parameter of research & innovation which she admits may be because of poor media communication. Nevertheless she derives comfort from SNU’s top score under the parameters of industry interface and placement which she interprets as India Inc’s high respect for SNU.

“Right from the start because of its parentage (SNU was established in 2011 by IT industry pioneer Shiv Nadar, promoter of ICT blue-chip HCL Ltd), SNU has had a deep and strong connect with not only the IT, but all sectors of industry. All our students are obliged to experience internships as there is strong emphasis on experiential learning in our curricula which are frequently updated and enhanced. Moreover, SNU introduced the Professors of Practice concept — under which experienced professionals from industry take classes in SNU — right from the beginning. Therefore, our large Careers Development Centre has an excellent record of placing graduates in suitable employment. Our good score under Infrastructure should have been higher because we have over 200 labs on campus and several Centres of Excellence, including a Centre for Integrative and Transformational Research,” says Mukherjee. Currently SNU has 4,499 students mentored by 350 faculty on its muster rolls.

Another institution that has been steadily advancing up the EW league table of India’s best multidisciplinary universities is the Chandigarh-based Chitkara University (CU, estb. 2010) promoted to #7 this year, up one rank every year since 2022, and ranked Chandigarh #1 for the past three years. This year’s sample respondents have awarded CU good scores under faculty competence, research & innovation and infrastructure.

“A distinguishing feature of CU is that from the beginning, our faculty has been encouraged to develop an entrepreneurship and research mindset. Under our CURIN (Chitkara University Research and Innovation Network) initiative, our faculty has registered 4,000 patents and published 14,000 Scopus index research papers and CU incubated 200 start-up enterprises. Evidently, this record has impressed industry because we have dedicated co-promoted labs on campus with Apple, Infosys and Cap Gemini, and a new lab with Reliance-Jio is under construction. And it may interest your readers to learn that this year, the London-based Times Higher Education ranked CU #1 worldwide for research quality. We are recognised for our cutting-edge research and experiential education, conducted jointly with our 225 partner universities worldwide,” says Dr. Madhu Chitkara, an alumna of Delhi and Panjab universities, and Chancellor of CU who co-promoted this “truly multidisciplinary university with 18 schools” a decade ago. Since then, the aggregate enrolment at its two campuses in Chandigarh and Mohali has risen to 22,000 students mentored by 2,000 faculty.

The Top 10 table is completed by Amrita Vishwa University, Coimbatore ranked #8 cf. #5 in 2024-25; Symbiosis International University, Pune at #9 (9) and the Satyabhama Institute of Science & Technology, Chennai which has entered the Top 10 (11). These reportedly well-endowed universities are arguably stuck in a groove because of low media penetration and poor ad spend planning.

Beyond the Top 10, several low media profile universities have moved up a notch or two in the perception of this year’s sample respondents. Among them: Shoolini University, Bajhol (Himachal Pradesh) which despite its remote location has acquired a good reputation (and score) for research & innovation; St. Joseph’s University, Bengaluru #12 which has pipped the anecdotally highly reputed Christ University, Bengaluru as Karnataka’s premier multidisciplinary university, and Somaiya Vidyavihar University, Mumbai voted #13 (15) this year.

Disappointingly, the highly promising Krea University whose advent as Andhra Pradesh/Tamil Nadu’s first new genre liberal arts university in 2018 aroused great expectations and merited a cover story in EducationWorld (2020), has since sunk into obscurity and has lost rank at #14 (11). Ditto the well-endowed GITAM University, Visakhapatnam ranked #16 (14) nationally. The managements of these privately promoted HEIs could perhaps derive some useful lessons about brand building and institutional management from Amity University which within two decades, has built itself an international reputation.

Further down the Top 20 table, the recently established Presidency University, Bengaluru is promoted to #15 (17) and the greenfield Manipal University, Jaipur has debuted at #18. The recent suicide of a Nepalese student on campus and the normatively empathetic management’s callous response to this tragedy has cost the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology heavily. KIIT ranked among India’s Top 10 in 2024-25 and Odisha #1 has been demoted to #17 and has lost its top rank in Odisha to Shiksha ‘O’ Anushandhan University. UPES, Dehradun and the newly promoted Chitkara University, Solan (HP) complete the Top 20.

It’s a positive development in the national interest that the league table of private multidisciplinary universities which are acquiring a national profile, is lengthening every year. Contrary to the dismissive attitude of academic dons in lackadaisical government HEIs established with public investment, substantial private savings, time and effort have been invested in privately-promoted HEIs and universities which are typically more ambitious, competitive and tend to benchmark themselves with the best worldwide. Therefore, they are valuable national assets more likely to nurture and develop alumni who will invent and innovate revolutionary, game-changer products and services that also-ran Indian industry, agriculture and society urgently need.

Be that as it may, it is also pertinent to bear in mind that private multidisciplinary universities modestly ranked nationally are often highly respected academic heavyweights in their host states, most as populous as Western nations. As alluded to earlier St. Joseph’s University, Bengaluru ranked #12 nationally is #1 in Karnataka (pop.70 million); Krea University, Sri City India #14 is #1 in Andhra Pradesh (pop.53 million); the steadily ascendant Jagran Lakecity University, Bhopal ranked India #23 is numero uno in Madhya Pradesh (pop.60 million) and Nirma University, Ahmedabad India #24 is #1 in Gujarat (pop.71 million), a short nose ahead of the recently (2015) promoted and well-marketed Parul University, Vadodara at #25 and second ranked multidisciplinary university of the state.

Careful study of the EW 2025-26 national league table of India’s most admired private multidisciplinary universities is likely to yield interesting, and perhaps life-changing information for parents and students aspiring to contribute towards realisation of the Viksit Bharat and $30 trillion GDP goals by 2047 set by Prime Minister Modi to make up for the lost socialist decades.