Prof. Appa Rao Podile will demit office as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) on June 7. He will hand over charge to Prof. Arun Agarwal, Pro Vice Chancellor 1, and the senior-most professor in the university.
Prof. Podile had requested the Ministry of Education (MoE) in March to relieve him from the position. Based on his request, the approval from the President, who was the Visitor for all Central universities and appointing authority of their vice-chancellors, was received recently.
Prof. Podile was appointed VC of UoH on September 21, 2015, for a period of five years and granted one year’s extension in September 2020. Prof. Podile is a senior professor in the department of Plant Sciences in the School of Life Sciences at UoH.
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His tenure was marked by nation-wide protests demanding his resignation following the suicide of research scholar Rohit Vemula in January 2016. The student had ended his life after suspension from a hostel and alleged caste discrimination.
The university was recognised as an institution of eminence by Central government in 2019 and recently ranked among world’s top universities by QS World Universities Rankings 2021.