USTM to host 97th All India vice-chancellors conference in March 2023

GUWAHATI:

The 97th Annual General Body Meeting of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), New Delhi, as well as the National Conference of the vice-chancellors will be held at the University of Science and Technology Meghalaya (USTM) in March 2023.

Dr Pankaj Mittal, secretary-general of AIU, visited USTM recently to take stock of the feasibility of the venue and was very satisfied with the state-of-the-art infrastructure, the progress of the university and its teaching-learning facilities.

It was informed that more than 900 vice-chancellors from universities across India will take part in the most prestigious academic event of the country.

Mittal expressed her wish that the conference at USTM will be one of the best conferences organised so far. It is the first of its kind to be held in the region at the beginning of 2023.

During her visit to USTM from July 21 to 23, Dr Mittal also inaugurated the Advanced Research Centre cum Central Instrumentation Facility at USTM in the presence of USTM chancellor Mahbubul Hoque and VC Prof GD Sharma.

It could be mentioned here that Prof GD Sharma recently took over the charge of AIU vice-president with effect from July 1 for one year, as stated in a notification signed by Dr Mittal.

AIU is the highest body which gives equivalence to foreign university degrees in India. AIU is the revised nomenclature of the Inter-University Board (IUB) of India—the Apex Inter-University Organization constituted on March 23, 1925 in a meeting of Vice Chancellors/their representatives at Bombay University. It was the culmination of the need to bring together all the universities in India on a common platform through a coordinating body, to protect the interest of the students as well as the universities. The Inter-University Board acquired a legal status with its registration as a Society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, on September 29, 1967, and was renamed as Association of Indian Universities (AIU) in 1973.

Since its inception, AIU has been actively engaged in the growth and development of higher education. The membership of AIU includes all types of universities, for example, conventional universities, open universities, deemed to be universities, state universities, central universities, private universities and institutes of national importance. In addition to Indian universities, 13 universities/institutes from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Republic of Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nepal, Thailand, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United Kingdom are its Associate Members.