Within 12 years since it admitted its first batch of 112 students, the Sonipat (Haryana)-based O.P. Jindal Global University (estb.2009) is ranked India’s #1 private varsity and among the global Top 750 in the QS World University Rankings 2022. Credit for the unprecedented evolution of this higher education institution is mainly due to its indefatigable founding vice-chancellor. THE ILL-CONSIDERED 60-WEEK lockdown of all education institutions countrywide for fear of the deadly novel Coronavirus — the longest duration pandemic prompted education cessation worldwide — has hit India’s pre-primary and K-12 children hardest. A string of impact studies conducted by Unicef, Unesco, Pratham Education Foundation and a recent SCHOOL (School Offline and Online Learning) a survey published on September 6, indicate that in some parts of the country, 70-80 percent of youngest children haven’t learned anything at all during the past 18 months, with millions of them in danger of having forgotten what they had learned in the pre-pandemic years. Moreover, with the great majority of 80 million infants and 220 million children in 1.6 million government anganwadis (early childhood nutrition centres for newborns and lactating mothers), and 1.2 million government primaries entitled to a free-of-charge in-school mid-day meal, having suffered continuous nutrition deprivation, the repercussions on the country’s human resource pool are likely to be devastating for years to come. Certainly, the national goal of closing the academic gap between India and the developed industrial nations of the West, and especially the neighbouring People’s Republic of China, has been delayed by several years, if not decades. The impact of the unprecedented Covid-induced education lockdown on India’s 42,343 undergrad colleges and 1,043 universities has been less catastrophic. The country’s estimated 38.5 million students in higher education tend to be more ICT (information communication technology)-savvy and better prepared to learn from home, and the majority of public and private HEIs (higher education institutions) are relatively well equipped to provide digital online education. In particular, the country’s 54 Central government and 514 private universities have been able to substantially maintain teaching-learning continuity during the protracted pandemic crisis. Within the minority of HEIs that have been successful in weathering the Covid-19 storm, the private Sonipat (Haryana)-based O.P. Jindal Global University (JG estb.2009) has not only maintained learning continuity, and successfully graduated 1,569 students in 2020-21, it has also won numerous encomiums in India and abroad for higher education excellence. This young law, social sciences, liberal arts and humanities university was established 12 years ago in memory of steel tycoon, O.P. Jindal (1930-2005) by a trust chaired by his son Naveen Jindal, a former Member of Parliament, is acknowledged as India’s #1 private university by the globally-reputed Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a London-based agency that annually ranks 1,300 universities in 100 countries worldwide. In its latest QS World University Rankings 2022, QS ranks JGU among the Top 750 universities of the world and among the Top 500 worldwide for employability of graduates. Moreover, QS also ranks the university’s Jindal Global Law School #76 worldwide and #1 in…
