Context: Recently, ‘India Rankings 2020’ of Institutions of Higher Education was released. These rankings come days after the QS World University Rankings which showed that India’s best institutions like Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have slipped in the global list.
Background

• This is the fifth consecutive edition of India Rankings of the institutions of higher education in India. 
• In 2020, an addition to nine rankings ie one domain “Dental” has been introduced for the first time bringing the total tally to 10 categories/subject domains.

Data collection

• Besides, sourcing data on various parameters from applicant institutions, third party sources of data have also been used, wherever possible. 
• A total number of 3771 unique institutions offered themselves for ranking under “Overall”, category-specific and/or domain-specific rankings for India Rankings 2020.
• These rankings come after the QS World University Rankings showed that India’s best including the IISc and most IITs have slipped in the global lists.

Key highlights of the 2020 rankings

• IIT Madras retains 1st Position in Overall Ranking as well as in Engineering,
• Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru tops the University list.
• IIM Ahmedabad tops in Management Category and AIIMS occupies the top slot in Medical category for a third consecutive year.
• Miranda College retains 1st position amongst colleges for a third consecutive year.
• Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences, Delhi secures 1st position in “Dental” category, dental institutions included for the first time in India Rankings 2020.

Significance of the ranking

• These rankings act as a guide to students for selection of universities based on a set of criteria and help universities to improve their performance on various ranking parameters and identify gaps in research and areas of improvement. 
• These rankings of Institutions at the national level instill a competitive spirit amongst institutions to perform better and secure a higher rank in the international ranking.

About NIRF

• The NIRF is a methodology adopted by the Ministry of HRD to rank institutions of higher education in India.
• The Framework was approved and on 29 September 2015.
• There are separate rankings for different types of institutions depending on their areas of operation like universities and colleges, engineering institutions, management institutions, pharmacy institutions and architecture institutions.
• The ranking framework evaluates institutions on five broad generic groups of parameters, i.e. Teaching, Learning and Resources (TLR), Research and Professional Practice (RP), Graduation Outcomes (GO), Outreach and Inclusivity (OI) and Perception (PR).