Universities to present their plans for chairs in January

New Delhi, Dec 16 :  The University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked varsities to present proposals in January on their plans to set up chairs named after Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and Swami Dayanand Saraswati, informed sources said on Saturday.

According to officials, the universities will be asked to present their proposals before an expert committee on January 10 and 11, which will later submit its report to the central funding agency for higher learning institutions.

The UGC had earlier this year solicited entries from universities for setting up chairs in the name of Upadhyaya, a co-founder of Bhartiya Jana Sangh, an earlier avatar of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and of Dayanand Saraswati, a 19th century social reformer.

The chairs so established will come in the area of "Socio Economic Thoughts and Integral Humanism" and "Social Reformer/ Social Awakening".

Many such chairs are already established in several universities, which have been named after eminent personalities, including freedom fighters, scientists and Nobel Prize winners from the country.