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India’s new Education Minister’s ‘fake degrees’ cause a stir on social media https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/indi...dia-1.64326744 This image has been resized.Click to view original image Quote: Dubai: India’s newly-appointed minister of Human Resource Development (HRD) has come under the scanner after it was reported that he had two degrees from an international university not recognised or registered. Ramesh Pokhriyal was sworn in as the HRD minister in the second Modi government and soon a news report shed light on his two doctorate degrees that were received from a university in Sri Lanka. According to a news report by Indian news website India Today, in the 90s, the Open International University (OIU) of Colombo conferred two doctorates to him for his contribution in literature and in the field of science. However, according to the report, OIU is neither registered as a foreign university nor as a domestic university in Sri Lanka, the university grants commission of Sri Lanka confirmed. On social media, users found it surprising that the man in charge of promoting the level of education in the country had questionable credentials. Others also spoke about two dates of birth that conflicted in Pokhriyals’ records. Tweeps, however, were disappointed that Pokhriyal was the second education minister with allegedly fake degrees, after Smriti Irani served as the HRD minister from 2014 to 2016. Irani’s official applications show conflicting information about her educational qualifications and she claims to have a degree from Yale University.