Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, Howrah

Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, under the aegis of Ramakrishna Mission with Headquarters at Belur Math, Howrah, West Bengal, is a University declared by Government of India under Section 3 of University Grants Commission (UGC) Act, 1956. This paper briefly describes the institute, its aims and objectives, its distinctive features, its major thrust areas, etc.This University has been conceived not as a mere movement for imparting character-building education to inculcate the fundamental values of truth, purity and unselfishness, and to create educated men and women of impeccable integrity of character, wholesome human beings with head, heart and hand harmoniusly developed. Endowed with brilliant and luminious intellects, loving and overflowing compassionate hearts, and energetic and efficient hands, these children of Mother India educated in a new ethos of self-abandonment rather than self-aggrandizement and self-glorification, will revivify and resuscitate our country to her past glory, thereby helping to actualize one Swami Vivekananda's most favourite visions of a glorious India of the future. The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India accorded permission to the Ramakrishna Mission to start a deemed [to be] university (under University Grants Commission Act) named Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute by a Gazette Notification dated 5 January 2005. Later, by another Notification of the UGC, the university was renamed as ‘'Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Univeristy'. The formal inauguration of the university took place on 4 July 2005, Swami Vivekananda’s Mahasamadhi day. The first convocation of the university was held on 2 September 2006 at its first Specialised Faculty Centre at Coimbatore. Swami Vivekananda envisioned that Belur Math would be a centre of great harmony and synthesis, not only of all religious beliefs and traditions, but also of arts and sciences and the various branches of knowledge, both secular and spiritual. It would be the centre of great spiritual and cultural awakening. Aims and Objectives – The Vision: The present university is intended to actualize Swami Vivekananda’s fundamental educational ideas of imparting life building, man-making and character-building education by combining the best elements of the East and the West. The aim of the institute is to provide opportunities for education and research in the disciplines of arts sciences and spiritual studies. Value education will therefore be an essential component in all the courses. Administrative Aspects: The University will be an international university that could operate through and from any of the branch-centres of Ramakrishna Mission in India and abroad. It is a cluster of institutions, all of them belonging to branches of Ramakrishna Mission, with headquarters at Belur Math. The Major Thrust Areas: To start with, major thrust areas were chosen because these have received little emphasis in any of the other conventional universities in India. They are thus the gap areas in which the present university would operate. Disability Management and Special Education Integrated Rural Development including Tribal Development Indian Cultural & Spiritual Heritage and Value Education Disaster Management including Relief and Rehabilitation.