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President Pranab Mukherjee will hold a conference with all the vice chancellors of 39 central universities from February 4.

Mukherjee convened the meeting for deliberating previous recommendations steps to create an eco-system for research and innovation with participation of industry and research institutions; capacity development of faculty, creating international and national networks, adoption of choice based credit system etc, a statement from Rashtrapati Bhavan said.

The President is a visitor to the universities and this is the third time of such conference with Vice Chancellors of the central university.

Mukherjee is convening regular conferences with Directors of NITs, IITs, IISERs and IISC, it said.

Union Minister of Human Resource Development Smriti Irani,  Ministers of State for Human Resource Development; Chairman, University Grants Commission and Vice Chancellors of 39 Central Universities will attend the conference.

The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee will present Visitor’s Awards for Central Universities in the categories of ‘Best University’, ‘Innovation’ and ‘Research’ for the year 2015 at a function to be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan on February 4, 2015.  

The Visitor’s Award for the ‘Best University’ will be awarded to the University of Hyderabad.

Visitor’s Award for ‘Innovation’ will be given to Prof. Vijay K. Chaudhary and Dr. Amita Gupta of the University of Delhi who have invented ‘TB Confirm’, a rapid diagnostic test for Tuberculosis.

-Arun Kumar