Onlykashmir.in News Desk
The Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir held the 46th meeting of its Academic Council on Wednesday at the Vice Chancellor’s Conference Hall on the Main Campus in Shalimar, using the occasion to lay out a broader vision for academic transformation, research and the institution’s continuing shift from a national to a global profile.
The meeting was chaired by Vice Chancellor Prof. Nazir Ahmad Ganai and drew members of the Academic Council, representatives from sister universities and institutions, and officers and scientists attached to the University. Shri Ram Niwas, Commissioner and Secretary to the Government in the Higher Education Department of Jammu and Kashmir, attended as chief guest, lending the proceedings the weight of direct government engagement with the University’s academic direction.
Addressing the Council, Prof. Ganai emphasised the need to integrate technology more deeply into agriculture and to strengthen the University’s focus on knowledge creation, innovation and the practical application of research, framing these priorities as central to SKUAST-K’s evolving mandate. Ram Niwas, in his remarks, acknowledged the University’s shift in ambition from the national to the global level, and pointed specifically to the proposed Centre for Pedagogy and Training as an initiative that could serve as a model for universities elsewhere in the country, a comment that signalled the government’s interest in the University’s institutional experiments extending beyond agriculture alone.
Prof. M. Altaf Bhat, Director of Education at SKUAST-K, underlined the importance of academic deliberations of this kind in strengthening the University’s educational mandate and aligning its priorities with emerging national and global requirements. Presenting the University’s Progress Report, Registrar and Member Secretary of the Academic Council, Prof. Azmat Alam Khan, traced the institution’s trajectory, noting that SKUAST-K had progressively repositioned its goalposts, moving from “local to national” ambitions in 2022 to a “national to global” orientation by 2026, a repositioning that has shaped much of the discussion at this year’s Council meeting.
Following the presentations, the Council turned to its formal business, discussing agenda items and reviewing the Action Taken Report from the previous meeting, with members contributing their inputs on the way forward. Among the concrete outcomes of the session was the release of a revised, uniform format for postgraduate and Ph.D. theses, a move intended to bring greater standardisation and consistency to thesis preparation and submission across departments. The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks proposed by Umer Ibni Assad, Deputy Registrar for Academics at SKUAST-K.
