Mysuru: Spiritual leader Dalai Lama and Pramoda Devi Wadiyar will receive the honorary doctorate at the 97th annual convocation of University of Mysore which will be held at Crawford Hall on December 13. Dalai Lama will also be delivering convocation address.

Addressing media persons at Council Hall here on Wednesday, K S Rangappa, Vice Chancellor, UOM said “Women have outshone men at the convocation with 14,825 women candidates (61 percent) out of 24,363 candidates being conferred with different degrees. A total of 9538 (39 percent) men will be receiving the degrees. A total of 312 medals, 180 prizes will be shared by 201 candidates in all five faculties. Among 201 candidates who will be sharing 312 medals, 138 are women. Over 300 candidates will be receiving Ph D degrees in various subjects. Among them, 162 (54 percent) are men and 138 (46 percent) are women. On the occasion, 7388 candidates including 3889 women (53 percent) will be receiving master degrees while 16,675 candidates will be conferred with Bachelor’s degree including 10,798 women candidates which is nearly 65 percent”.

Regarding the convocation being held twice a year, Rangappa said “This is not the first time that the convocation is being held twice in a year. As I am retiring from service on January 11, during the Syndicate meeting held six months ago, the members forced me and took unanimous decision to conduct convocation in January. When I contacted Dalai Lama, who missed the last convocation and requested him to do the convocation address which we had planned on January 6 or 7, Dalai Lama said that he would be going for heart surgery and hence requested us to advance convocation to December second week. We brought this request to the notice of the Governor who approved the same. On December 3, I also received a letter from Governor’s office to go ahead with convocation on December 13”.

List of candidates who secured highest percentage of marks and higher number of medals/prizes:

Under Graduate: Faculty of Arts – S Kavya- BA -85.80 percent, 3 medals and 3 prizes; Faculty of Commerce- G Rashmi Prabhu – B Com- 91.67 percent, 3 medals and 3 prizes; Faculty of Science and Technology- Maseera Khanum – B Sc – 89.66 percent, 2 medals and 2 cash prizes.

Post Graduate: Faculty of Arts – Vedavathi – MA (Economics) 80.53 percent, 7 medals and 4 prizes; Faculty of Commerce: Varsha M Kaushik – MBA (Agri Business) 82.04 percent, 5 medals; Faculty of Education: K Vinod Kumar – M PED, 83.57 percent, 3 medals and 3 prizes; Faculty of Law: Nongmaithem Anamika Devi-LLM, 78.11 percent, 3 medals and 3 prizes; Faculty of Science and Technology: Neha Saran-M Sc (Chemistry), 87.04 percent, 16 medals and 4 prizes.