A record-breaking 31 institutes found a place in the prestigious Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2016-17. So many institutes qualified in an attempt to boost the government's effort to make the country's higher education better and more world-class. The ranking covers as many as 980 institutes this year. Only IISc Bangalore and IIT Bombay made it to the top 400. Thirty-one Indian institutions feature in a list of 980 best universities in the world with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru edging closer to the top 200. Leading the Indian universities, IISc has claimed a spot in the 201-250 band, its highest ever position. The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2016, issued on Thursday, has ranked 980 institutions from 70 countries. The list was subject to an independent audit by professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Second among the top Indian institutions is IIT-Bombay, which has found a place in the top 400. While there are 14 new entrants like Tezpur University from Assam and Amity University, five of the 2015 ranked universities -- IIT Kharagpur, IIT Guwahati, Panjab University, Amrita University and Andhra University -- saw a drop in their rankings this year. The country also has four new entries in the top 800, which are National Institute of Technology (Rourkela), Sri Venkateswara University, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Tezpur University.

University of Oxford, UK, topped the overall list, pushing California Institute of Technology, US, from first position last year to second. Among the top 10, seven are from the US, while three are from the UK. At number nine, ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich) is the lone non-US and -UK institution in the top 10. Two institutes have been placed at the tenth position.

Doubling its representation in this year's newly expanded list, South Asia has claimed 39 places, up from 20 last year. Sri Lanka has made its debut in the table with University of Colombo, while seven institutes from Pakistan, including five new entrants, feature in the list. But the star of the region is India, which has 31 universities on the list.

"India's strong performance is partly thanks to the country recognising the importance of participating in global benchmarking exercises. Just last month the government launched a new funding-backed project aimed at catapulting Indian Institutes of Technology to the top of world university rankings.