Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen will be the chief mentor of the prestigious Presidency University, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has said.
Sugato Bose, grand nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, will be the chairman of the mentor group to be formed on the lines of the newly-revived Nalanda International University in Bihar. “We will not choose the members. We don’t want partycracy, but democracy. The two of them will decide on that,” Banerjee said on Friday.
In 2010, the former Left Front government had upgraded the 193-year-old Presidency College into a university. Originally called Hindu College that cradled the Bengal renaissance in the 19th century, the hallowed institution was rechristened Presidency College in 1855.
The institution, with around 2,500 students, still churns out talent, but is facing a lot of criticism about its falling standards due to alleged politics in teacher recruitment and frequent student unrest. The college’s alumni include Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore, social reformer Swami Vivekananda, freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, filmmaker Satyajit Ray, Marxist legend Jyoti Basu, economist Amartya Sen and scientist Satyendranath Bose.
The country’s first President, Rajendra Prasad, and former state chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee were also students of the college.