The willingness of Sharjah Sheikh Sultan Bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi to accept the honorary doctoral degree offered by the University of Calicut has brought cheers to the university authorities. The sheikh’ s letter accepting the university’ s honours came a few days ago even as top engineer and ‘Metro Man’ E. Sreedharan declined the university’s doctoral offer.
Calicut University has decided to give honorary doctorates to five luminaries, including Sharjah Sheikh and cricketing legend SachinTendulkar.
The others chosen for the honour were actor Mohanlal, athlete P.T. Usha and Mr. Sreedharan.
Apart from the sheikh, Mr. Mohanlal and Ms. Usha too agreed to accept the degrees. When Mr. Sreedharan declined the offer, Mr. Tendulkar was yet to respond to the university’s gesture.
VC unhappy
Vice Chancellor M. Abdul Salam was, however, disappointed at the timing of the conferment of the honours. Although Chancellor P. Sathasivam has given his consent for the honours, the date of the awarding could not be confirmed. The Vice Chancellor is to relinquish office in less than two weeks.
The date of the award ceremony, according to the university statutes, should be announced by leaving at least a month’s gap. Although the Vice Chancellor wanted the awards to be given away during his period, the consent by Sultan Bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi came much later than anticipated.
However, the sheikh’s acceptance of the university gesture has enthused many on the campus.
“The Sharjah Sheikh, a man of letters, has been chosen for the honorary doctoral degree considering his contributions to art and society,” said A.B. Moideenkutty, Head of the Department of Arabic.
Al-Qasimi has two doctoral degrees in political geography of the Gulf and history. A man who did his master’s degree in education, Al-Qasimi has already been bestowed with 35 honorary degrees from various universities.
Sharjah Sheikh to accept; Tendulkar yet to respond to Calicut University gesture
