Hasmukh Adhia Appointed as Chancellor of Gujarat Central University

President Ram Nath Kovind has approved the appointment of former finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia as the chancellor of Gujarat Central University. He will hold the post for a period of five years.
Hasmukh Adhia was a Gujarat cadre IAS officer and was appointed as the secretary in the Department of Financial Services after then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi took charge as the Prime Minister in 2014.

Central University

Central Universities were established in India under the Central Universities Act 2009. The Act provided for the establishment of one new central university each in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.
The act also sought to convert  Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyala in Chhattisgarh, Harisingh Gour Vishwavidhalaya in Sagar (Madhya Pradesh) and Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Uttarakhand into Central universities.
The Central Universities were established by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development to address regional imbalances in higher educational facilities in states and 16 states were identified for the establishment of central universities.
Further, through the Central universities Amendment Act 2014 another central university was established at Bihar and another Central University was established in Andhra Pradesh in 2018.

Month: Current Affairs - March, 2019