Two Cluster Universities Set-Up in Jammu & Kashmir for the New Academic Session 2017

Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti has appointed Vice-Chancellors for the Cluster University in Jammu and Kashmir respectively for the smooth functioning of both the Cluster Universities in the state. Both the Cluster Universities have been established with the aim to run a series of additional and advanced courses in the existing colleges in the state of Jammu & Kashmir. One Cluster University will be stationed in Srinagar and one in Jammu and will act as lead college for the varsities in the state. With the introduction of Cluster Universities, the total count of higher education institutes in Jammu & Kashmir has now reached 11.

Until now, she was serving as the Vice-Chancellor of the Cluster University in Jammu and Cluster University in Kashmir. The new VC’s are:

Anu Bhasin is a Professor of the Department of Physics at University of Jammu, while Sheikh Javid Ahmed has been the Dean of Research at the University of Kashmir.

Ms. Bhasin comes enriched with 28 plus years of experience in Experimental Particle Physics. She also has been referred and published in about 355 publications. She has also been elected as a Member of the Management Board of ALICE Experiment, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland for the time period beginning January 2017 and December 2019.

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On the other hand, Prof. Ahmed is an IIT Mumbai alumnus and has done his Doctorate in Theoretical Physics in 1987. He has published close to 125 papers in renowned journals, which are highly credited in Nuclear Physics.

Upon assuming office, both of them will serve out their tenure for a period of 5 years.

Mehbooba Mufti has also appointed Registrars of the Cluster University in Jammu & Kashmir respectively. The Registrar of the Cluster University, Jammu is Jatinder Khajuria, while Yaseen Ahmad Shah has been appointed the Registrar of the Cluster University, Kashmir.

Yaseen is the Principal of SP College in Srinagar, while Jatinder is the Joint Registrar (Finance) at the University of Jammu.

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The state government of Jammu Kashmir has already approved 124 posts for employment in these universities. The government has also decided that all participating colleges will be converted into constituent colleges of the Cluster University.

The motive behind setting up of the Cluster Universities was:

• Enhance the higher education institutes in J&K
• Diversify academics
• Introduce job-centered courses at the Diploma, UG & PG level
• Increase the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in J & K

Under the Cluster University, the following PG & Diploma courses will be available:

• Science
• Engineering
• Management
• Entrepreneurship Development
• Humanities
• Social Sciences
• Liberal Arts
• Languages
• Teacher’s Education
• Job-intensive courses