Union Budget 2019: Nirmala Sitharaman economical with truth, lies on world ranking of Indian institutes 

Presenting her maiden budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman declared that the allocation on Education during the 2019-20 fiscal will be three times the revised estimate. But she stopped short of mentioning any figure and promising that the Education Budget would go up substantially from 3 per cent of the GDP to six.

While her focus remained on research & development, attracting foreign students to study in India and creating centres of excellence, the road map was far from clear.

And when it came to the rankings, her ministry let her down on facts which are available in the public domain, raising doubts on the rest of her claims.

She stated for example that for the first time Indian Institutes appeared in the list of the top 200 universities in the world after 2014. She said for the first time Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi, Indian Institute of Science – Bangalore and Indian Institute of Technology – Bangalore.

However, Sitharaman was lying. All Indian Institutes of Technology were listed at rank 41 in the annual QS World University Rankings in 2004. From 2004 to 2014, it was the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government in power.

Then in 2005, they again appeared in the same list at rank 50. Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) first appeared on the list in 2005 and were ranked at 84 and in the same year Jawaharlal Nehru University also made its appearance at rank 192.

Continuing with this performance, IITs appeared on the annual QS World University Rankings in 2006 at 57th rank. IIMs improved their rank from the previous year and they climbed to 68th position as did JNU, which came up to 183.

In 2007, there was a miss and then again Indian universities appeared on the list in 2008. In 2008, IIT-Delhi was ranked at 154, IIT-Bombay at 174. It was the first time both the universities made it to the list separately. In 2009 too, Indian institutes were on the annual QS World University Rankings. IIT-Delhi fell to 181 and IIT-Bombay climbed up to 163.

In 2010, none of the Indian universities came in the top 200. Until 2014, Indian institutes remained out of the top 200 ranks. They appeared within the top 300 universities. Then in 2015, Indian institutes appeared again the list. Indian Institute of Science-Bangalore in 2015 at rank 147. Then the IITs also climbed up the ranks in 2015. IIT-Delhi, which was at 235 the year before, was listed at 179 and IIT-Bombay, which was at 222 in 2014, was at the 200th position in 2015.

Then in 2016, only two of the universities appeared again on the list and their ranks had fallen. The rank of Indian Institute of Science-Bangalore skidded by five positions to 152, then IIT-Delhi’s rank also fell to 185, a drop of 6 ranks. IIT-Bombay, which had just about managed to be on rank the previous year was not on the rank list in 2016.

In 2017, two Indian institutes managed to be on the list. Indian Institute of Science-Bangalore was no longer on the list. IIT-Delhi improved its rank from the previous year to 172, but it was not the best rank they had been at. Then IIT-Bombay too showed up on the rank after having fallen down t0 219 in 2016. In 2017, the institute were at 179.

In 2018, three Indian institutes showed up in the top universities list. IIT-Delhi was at 172, IIT-Bombay at 179 and Indian Institute of Science-Bangalore made an appearance again at 190.

In 2019, IIT-Bombay improved its ranking and was placed at 162, IISC-Bangalore at 170 and IIT-Delhi remained at 172.