The newly-appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University has declared the National Education Policy and its implementation as the focal point of her tenure. Prof Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, in her first message to the JNU staff, students and faculty, thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Ministry of Education at the outset, and then went on to say that the immediate focus of her administration would be to provide "clean administration, students friendly and gender-sensitive environment for academic excellence."

Prof Pandit is the first woman to be appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of JNU. In some way, Pandit is back at her alma mater as she did her PhD in International Relations from JNU in 1990. She has also received a Post-Doctoral Diploma in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala University in Sweden in 1996.

Just as her predecessor, Prof M Jagadesh Kumar, who has announced that the NEP will be at the top of his agenda in his new post as the Chairman of the University Grants Commission, Prof Pandit has also placed the NEP at the forefront of her goal to take the varsity to greater heights of academics and research. 

In a signed notice released by the JNU, she said, "We would strive to implement NEP 2020 the vision of our Hon'ble Prime Minister especially in interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary areas of studies, JNU rising to greater heights of academics and research. The focus would be in constructing Indo-centric narratives."