A post is being shared widely on social media with a claim that while 17 Indian Universities were in the top 300 universities in the world under the Manmohan Singh government, there is not even one Indian University in the top 300 under the Modi’s government. Let’s try to analyze the claims made in the post.

The post does not mention the name of the rankings. Various world university rankings can be found on the internet. When searched on Google about Indian University not being in Top 300, recent news articles about none of the Indian Universities being ranked in the Top 300 universities in the world by ‘Time Higher Education 2020 World University Rankings’ can be found.

So, let’s try to check the rankings of the Indian universities on two famous world university rankings – ‘Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings’ and ‘QS World University Rankings’.

‘THE’ World University Rankings:

On the website of ‘Times Higher Education (THE)’, it can be found that the Indian Universities were included in the World University Rankings in the year 2012. When checked about the rankings of Indian Universities from 2012 to the latest rankings in 2020, it was found that no more than two Indian Universities were present in each year’s rankings from 2012. In 2020, there was not even one Indian University in the Top 300.

‘QS’ World University Rankings:

The data of QS World University Rankings is available only from 2017 on its website. When searched, it was found that there are Indian Universities in the Top 300 under the Modi Government.

From both rankings, it can be concluded that Indian Universities were ranked in Top 300 even under the Modi government. The data for one of these rankings is available only from 2012, so the number of Indian Universities in the Top 300 before 2012 cannot be ascertained. Also, when searched about ’17 Indian Universities in the World’s Top 300’ on Google, no credible news reports were found. Hence, from the available data, it can be concluded that Indian Universities performed in the same manner even under the Manmohan’s government.

To sum it up, under both Manmohan and Modi, the number of Indian Universities in the Top 300 World Universities was dismally low.

Published with permission from Factly.