Calcutta University, Kolkata

The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (CU), is a public state research university in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Established on 24 January 1857 under the Calcutta University Act, it is the oldest multidisciplinary university in the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asian region. At its founding, its jurisdiction extended from Kabul to Myanmar, though today it is limited to a few districts of West Bengal. The university has fourteen campuses across Kolkata and its suburbs, with 151 affiliated colleges and 21 institutes and centres as of 2020. It is accredited as an 'A' grade university by NAAC and was ranked fourth in the Indian University Ranking 2021 by NIRF. Its alumni and faculty include heads of state and government, social reformers, artists, an Indian Dirac Medal winner, several Fellows of the Royal Society, and six Nobel laureates, including Ronald Ross, Rabindranath Tagore, C. V. Raman, Amartya Sen, and Abhijit Banerjee. The university's early history includes the affiliation of the first medical school in British India, the Calcutta Medical College, and the first women's college in India, Bethune College. It has the highest number of students who have cleared the National Eligibility Test and is a member of the United Nations Academic Impact.