Professor Badri Narayan Tiwari
Credit: Central Tribal University of Andhra Pradesh.
Mumbai: Social historian and cultural anthropologist Prof Badri Narayan Tiwari has been appointed as the Vice Chancellor of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.
The appointment takes place after the institution’s previous full-time head stepped down around 22 months ago.
Prof Tiwari is the first VC appointed at TISS under the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) latest selection rules introduced in 2023.
The Ministry of Education’s order appointing Prof Tiwari after a comprehensive selection process was issued on Wednesday.
Prof Tiwari was the Director, G B Pant Social Science Institute, Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh.
Prof Tiwari holds is a PhD in Modern History from the University of Allahabad.
Before his stint at the GB Pant Social Science Institute, he was associated with the Centre for the Study of Discrimination and Exclusion, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
His research areas are social history, cultural anthropology, and Dalit studies.
Previously, Prof Manoj Kumar Tiwari, the Director of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Mumbai, was given the additional charge to oversee TISS.
The TISS was established in 1936 as the Sir Dorabji Tata Graduate School of Social Work. In 1944, it was renamed as the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The year 1964 was an important landmark in the history of the Institute, when it was declared Deemed to be a University under Section 3 of the University Grants Commission Act (UGC), 1956.
“Since its inception, the vision of the TISS has been to be an institution of excellence in higher education that continually responds to changing social realities through the development and application of knowledge, towards creating a people-centred, ecologically sustainable and just society that promotes and protects dignity, equality, social justice and human rights for all,” according to the TISS website.
A few years ago, TISS was brought under the purview of the Central government.
"It is with great excitement that we welcome Prof. Badri Narayan as the new Vice-Chancellor of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences,” the TISS posted on X.