Varsity gears up to hold 97th convocation

The century-old University of Mysore has made all necessary arrangements to host its 97th convocation on December 13. Vice-chancellor K S Rangappa said around 65% of the candidates securing degrees in the undergraduate category at the convocation are women. A total of 10,798 women will receive degrees in a total of 16,675 candidates. In the postgraduation category, around 3,889 women (53%) will be conferred degrees in a total of 7,388 candidates. The university is also conferring 300 PhD degrees and only in this category, women are a bit behind men with 46% 138 out of 300 candidates. Overall, the percentage of women securing various degrees is 61% (14,825).

About 312 medals and 180 cash prizes are being shared by 201 candidates in all five faculties — Arts, Commerce, Education, Law and Science and technology — and among them, 139 (69%) are women.

Toppers all
In the undergraduate category, S Kavya has topped the list with three medals and three cash prizes in Arts. In Commerce, G Rashmi Prabhu has topped with three medals and five cash prizes. In Science and Technology, Maseera Khanum is the topper with 89.66% and has won two medals and two cash prizes.

In the postgraduate category, Vedavathi has topped in Arts with seven medals and four cash prizes. Varsha M Kaushik is the topper in Commerce with five gold medals. Vinod Kumar has topped in Education with three gold medals and three cash prizes. Neha Saran has topped in Science and Technology with 16 medals and four cash prizes.

Second convocation
Prof Rangappa said the university has obtained special permission to conduct two convocation ceremonies in the same calender year and it does not violate the statues of the Universities Act. This will be the second convocation of the university in the same calender year as the 96th convocation was held on April 17.

Social science meet
He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to grace the Indian Social Science Congress scheduled for December 18. All arrangements are being made for the three-day congress, he said.

“The ceremony to release the centenary commemoration coins — in Rs 5 and Rs 100 denomination — will be held shortly. The programme scheduled for December 3 had to be postponed due to some reasons. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Reserve Bank of India officials will participate in the event,” he said.

Reacting to a query on the cancellation of the recruitment process in the university, Rangappa said, the governor had approved the appointment of 205 teaching faculty. However, the state government stalled it.

“Out of 660 teaching faculty posts in the university, whose departments have increased to 76, there are only 127 permanent staff. In 2017, the number of teaching faculty will reduce to 30%. If the teacher, student ration in the university drops below 1:40, the University Grants Commission will cancel the affiliation,” he said.