Jadavpur University authorities have decided to confer honorary D Lit to Olympian boxer Mary Kom, after former Indian skipper Sachin Tendulkar refused to accept on ‘ethical grounds’. The honorary D. Lit will be conferred to Mary Kom at the 63rd Annual Convocation of Jadavpur University (JU) scheduled on December 24. “We had decided to confer the honorary D. Lit to Mr Sachin Tendulkar. We approached him but recently he has sent us a mail mentioning that he will not be able to accept the honour citing Nitigoto (ethical) reasons.” said Suranjan Das, Jadavpur University, Vice-Chancellor speaking to media persons.
“He mentioned that he don’t accept such honour from any university. He even refused to accept a similar honour from Oxford University. He actually meant that since he hasn’t earned it, it would not be right for him to accept the D. Lit” added Das. The JU officials already informed the matter to Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi – who is the chancellor of the university and now they have decided to confer the honorary D. Lit to Mary Kom – an Indian Olympic boxer after Sachin’s refusal.
Mary Kom is a five-time World Amateur Boxing champion and first Indian woman boxer to get a Gold Medal in the Asian Games in 2014 in Incheon, South Korea. Also, she is the first Indian Woman Boxer to win Gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Beside Mary Kom – Director, Tata Medical Centre and Haematologist Dr Mammen Chandy, eminent economist Kaushik Basu, banker Chandrasekhar Ghosh will be conferred the honorary D. Lit.
Molecular biologist Dipankar Chatterji will be given the honorary D. Sc. In 2011, Sachin Tendulkar refused to accept similar offer from the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS).