Overview
The University of Madras is a public state university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Established in 1857, it is among the oldest universities in India, having been incorporated by an act of the Legislative Council of India under the British government. It functions as a collegiate research university and is one of the most prominent institutions of higher learning in the country.
The university operates from six campuses across Chennai, namely Chepauk, Marina, Guindy, Taramani, Maduravoyal and Chetpet. It offers more than 230 courses across 87 academic departments of post-graduate teaching and research, grouped under 18 schools covering sciences, social sciences, humanities, management and medicine. In addition, it has 121 affiliated colleges and 53 approved research institutions associated with it.
The University of Madras houses national centres for advanced research in nanotechnology, photonics and neurotoxicity. It also has three Centres of Advanced Study, in biophysics, botany, and the Ramanujan Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics. The National Assessment and Accreditation Council conferred a 'five star' accreditation on the university in the first cycle, and subsequently its highest A++ grade. The University Grants Commission has granted it the status of "University with Potential for Excellence (UPE)". It is also recognised among the 18 universities in India with a 'Centre with Potential for Excellence in Particular Area (CPEPA)', focusing on drug development and climate change.
The university counts among its alumni five Presidents of India, including A. P. J. Abdul Kalam; three Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of India; the physics Nobel laureates C. V. Raman and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar; mathematicians including Srinivasa Ramanujan and Abel Prize winner S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan; and Turing Award winner Raj Reddy, among others.
References
- University of Madras, English Wikipedia.