The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings have been released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The rankings list the best institutions and universities of India. The NIRF ranking framework instituted in 2016 evaluates institutions on five broad generic groups of parameters. 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 weightages depend on the type of institution. About 3500 institutions voluntarily participated in the first round of rankings.As decided by the Ministry of HRD, Ranking of institutions of Higher Education will be an annual exercise. Ranks will be declared on the 1st Monday of April every year.In the fourth edition of India Rankings, a total of 3127 institutions have participated. Collectively they have submitted 4867 distinct profiles, under various disciplines/categories. This includes 1479 for overall ranking, 970 Engineering Institutions, 555 Management Institutions, 301 Pharmacy Institutions, 80 Law Institutions, 113 Medical Institutions, 65 Architecture Institutions and 1304 Colleges.