Osmania University
A commemorative postage stamp on the Golden Jubilee of the Osmania University, a public state university in Hyderabad :
Issued by India
Issued on Mar 15, 1969
Issued for : The University had just celebrated its Golden Jubilee and the Posts and Telegraphs Department feels privileged to associate itself with this event by bringing out a commemorative stamp in honour of this great university.
Description of Design : The design of the stamp is horizontal and depicts the building of the “Osmania University”.
Type : Stamp, Postal Used
Colour : Olive Green
Denomination : 20 Paise
Overall Size : 4.06 X 2.28 cms.
Printing Size : 3.80 X 2.00 cms.
Perforation : 14 x 14½
Watermark : Printed on unwatermarked paper
Number Printed : 30,00,000
Number per issue Sheet : 50
Printing Process : Photogravure
Designed and Printed at : India Security Press
About :
- The Osmania University is unique in many respects. It was established at a time when higher education in India was entering its second phase of expansion and even at that time it embarked on the bold experiment of imparting higher education even in scientific and technical subjects in an Indian language which is now our accepted policy. It is thus a symbol of the renaissance of the Indian Educational System. It represents also the cultural synthesis of the North and the South. It has contributed greatly to the intellectual growth of Hyderabad, and it has lived up to its motto of ‘Tamaso Maa Jyotirgamayo‘ (lead me from darkness to light).
- The University came into being on September 22, 1918 when its Royal Founder, His Exalted Highness, Nawab Mir Osman Ali Khan, the then Nizam of Hyderabad issued a Firman which runs as follows:
“Whereas the prosperity and well being of our devoted and loyal subjects are the objects of our most earnest solicitude…. we are pleased to order that a university called the Osmania University be established at Hyderabad.“ - The Magic touch of the late Sir Akbar Hydari, a statesman of great vision, who later became the Prime Minister of the State, transformed it into a store-house of bristling intellectual activity, occupying a proud place among the temples of wisdom and learning in our country.
- Located in Hyderabad in an extensive and picturesque campus, the University now provides instruction in English apart from, one arts college affiliated to it teaching in Hindi and another in Urdu. A college with Telegu as the medium of instruction has come into being on 1968.
- While it completes the Golden Jubilee, it is among the largest in India with a total enrolment of 47,469 students and 2,543 members of the teaching staff. It has now under its jurisdiction, 74 colleges, 14 of which are constituent colleges and the rest affiliated. Today it offers Bachelor’s degrees in forty-six subjects, Ph.D., in thirty subjects besides diplomas in many subjects and languages and in the faculty of medicine.
- In addition to specific research projects in several faculties, the University has undertaken a Radiation Genetics Project sponsored by the Atomic Energy Commission.
- Osmania has been selected by the University Grants Commission to be an all-India centre for advanced training and research in Experimental Astronomy. A new 48-inch telescope, the largest in South-East Asia, is being erected at Rangapur for the Nizamiah Observatory of the University.
- Osmania University has a comprehensive teacher-exchange and student-exchange programmes with many universities abroad. It is appropriate that Osmania should emphasise India‘s role in the modern world by encouraging the enrolment of foreign students by seeking wide contacts with the foreign universities and scholars.
- Osmania has had a very notable record stretching over fifty years in the field of higher education and learning, and in recent times, it has witnessed an era of unprecedented development.
