Jawaharlal Nehru University on Thursday won the Visitor’s Award for the best central university in the country. The news was revealed by the Twitter handle of President of India.

Dr Shyam Sunder of Banaras Hindu University and Prof Niranjan Karak of Tezpur University jointly won the award in the research category. Visitor’s Award for innovation went to Dr Deepak Pant from Central University of Himachal Pradesh.

In 2016, JNU got two of the three Visitor’s Awards. The awards will be given out in a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan on March 6. The award was started by President Pranab Mukherjee in 2014. Mukherjee will also present awards for grassroots innovations and outstanding traditional knowledge during a week-long ‘Festival of Innovations’, starting on March 4.

Meanwhile, JNU Students’ Union President Mohit Pandey has launched an online petition, requesting the president not to hand over the award to Vice Chancellor Professor M Jagadesh Kumar, reported NDTV. The petition asks Mukherjee to nominate a joint delegation of students, teachers, staff and workers of the university that will receive the award jointly. “We strongly believe that Professor Kumar doesn’t deserve to receive the award on behalf of the entire JNU community,” read the petition.