Jadavpur University proposes DLitt for India team skipper Harmanpreet Kaur

Jadavpur University has proposed the name of ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup winning captain Harmanpreet Kaur as the recipient of the Honorary D Litt in its annual convocation on December 24, a senior university official said on Thursday.

The topic of Kaur as the recipient of DLitt, was broached at a special meeting of the deans of the university which was recently convened by the newly appointed full-time Vice Chancellor Chiranjib Bhattacharya.

During a meeting with university Chancellor and Governor C V Ananda Bose at Raj Bhavan on Wednesday, Bhattacharya informed him about the proposal and Bose concurred verbally, the official told PTI.

The Chancellor also gave a nod to the suggestion that the state-run university invite Nobel laureate Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee as the special guest.

Names of Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) Chairman Sameer V Kamat and Anusandhan National Research Foundation CEO Shivkumar Kalyanaraman were also brought up for the the proposed special guests and that was also okayed by the Raj Bhavan, the official said.

“There will be one special guest and either of these three prominent personalities will be the special guest for the occasion as recommended by the Special Meeting,” he explained.

He said the highest decision-making body of the JU, the Executive Committee, would soon meet to officially come up with the names of personalities to be invited and the D Litt recipient for the convocation and give its seal of approval along with other preparatory matters.

Afterwards, the proposed D Litt recipient personality and the special guest would be contacted for their consent.

In past two years, due to the absence of a full time VC, the governor had objected to the convocation but the university went ahead with the customary formalities like awarding degrees to the students, researchers and the keynote address by the VC.

The row over convocation in past two years resulted in the exit of two interim VCs Buddhadeb Sau and Bhaskar Gupta as the Governor had described the 2023 and 2024 Convocations as unauthorised since the state varsity did not have any full-time vice-chancellors then.

With Bhattacharya at the helm at JU as full time VC since November 3, the university is going to have a full-fledged convocation with the consent of all stakeholders including Governor this year.