Managing director of the Mahindra Group, Anand Mahindra claimed on Twitter that India is at the top in terms of the number of universities worldwide. He posted charts of the numbers and rankings of universities in different countries. In the first chart, he claimed that India is at the top with a total of 5,288 universities. In the second chart, he claimed that India has nine universities in the top 500 universities globally.
Source: Twitter
He wrote in his tweet “First, I was pleased to see that as far as the number of universities is concerned, we are at the top. However, as we all know, quantity is not equal to quality… Our goal should be to make our rankings equal in both measures!”
Fact Check
DFRAC team investigated Anand Mahindra’s claims by taking data on the number of universities in India on UCG (University Grants Commission). The team found that the total number of universities in India is only 1,078. We also checked his claim that India has nine universities in the top 500 global rankings.
We found a report of “Hindustan Times” stating that only five universities from India are included in the top 500 global rankings – IISc Bangalore, JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research Mysuru, Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences Solan, Alagappa University, Karaikudi, and Mahatma Gandhi University Kottayam.
Conclusion:
From DFRAC’s fact-check, it is clear that Anand Mahindra’s claim about India being at the top of universities globally is misleading.
