The Times Higher Education (THE) has released the rankings for Asian universities 2018. According to the THE annual rankings, the National University of Singapore is Asia's top university for the third year in a row.

While India, Pakistan, South Korea and Turkey have all increased their overall representation, several of their universities have fallen down the list, as reported by Times Higher Education.

According to the list, India's representation in the annual universities ranking for Asia has improved to 42 from last year's 33 even as several of its institutions registered a decline.

Meanwhile, for the first time, Banaras Hindu University, Jamia Millia Islamia and 10 other Indian institutions have made it to the list of top-350 varsities in the Asia University Rankings 2018.

Here's what Phil Baty, Editorial Director of global rankings at 'Times Higher Education' said:

"It is a fantastic achievement that India now has 42 universities in the Asia rankings and that the country has improved on 12 of the 13 metrics underlying the rankings," said Phil Baty, Editorial Director of global rankings at 'Times Higher Education'.

"While it has not experienced the same rapid improvement as East Asian nations such as China and while some of its institutions faced declines, India's overall rise proves that it can make advances year on year," said Phil Baty.

Fall in scores:

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, the country's highest-ranked institution, and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay each dropped two places to 29th and 44th respectively due to a fall in scores.

IIT Madras saw biggest decline

This year, the IIT Madras saw the biggest decline in the top 200, dropping 41 places to 103 in the 'Asia University Rankings 2018.'

Baty said India was still among the region's leading higher education country even as several of its institutions have registered a decline.

The main trend of this year's rankings is the continued rise of China, which now claims almost one in five places on the table.

Reasons behind rise in ranking

India's rise is partly due to an expansion of the table to include over 350 universities this year, up from around 300 last year.

Two of the country's newcomers to make the top 200 in the list include the Indian School of Mines ranked 141 and Banaras Hindu University which is jointly ranked 194.

Improvement in citation performance

India achieved a higher average score this year

On average, its universities saw an improvement in their citation performance

Indian varsities have also picked up points in other areas such as research productivity, even though it tends to lag behind on research environment

As per the ranking analysis, teaching reputation was the only area of decline

"The South Asian region has increased its representation in the 2018 'THE' Asia University Rankings, but is struggling to maintain its standing in the face of competition from east and south-east Asia," Baty added.

Ranking criteria of universities

The rankings are structured as global performance tables that judge research-intensive universities across all their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

(With inputs from PTI)

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