Hyderabad: The Private Universities Bill of the Telangana government is facing protests from various quarters. On Monday a group of students protesting against the bill near Old MLA quarters were detained by police but released later. While Telangana government is keen on passing the bill, a look at the various world university rankings released in 2016 and in previous years, like the QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Edu-cation World University Rankings show that central and state government funded universities always rule the roost in rankings.
While India has 255 private universities, not more than eight of the well known private universities and research institutes figure in the top 1,000 universities in the world. Most of them figure at tail end of the rankings, beyond 800. Only central and state funded universities have been among the top ranked institutions. A look at the National Institute Ranking Framework results released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development shows that among the top 100 universities in the country, just around 25 universities are not public funded. Of these a majority are deemed universities.

Reputed private universities are seen as a better option by students who miss out on getting admitted to the top public funded universities and do not want to take admission in the second rung public universities.