Panjab University ahead of IITs in World's Top Varsities List

"The drive in India to share more data and to compare its institutions against the trusted, established and rigorous standards set by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings is a great step to improved quality," he added.

The increased representation for India in the rankings has been attributed to a two-day National Policy Dialogue in May on international rankings, when representatives of Times Higher Education were invited to meet with senior university leaders by India's Ministry of Human Resources Development and Planning Commission.

"India is clearly focusing more and more on quality to compete with the world's best. These rankings require a lot of data and in the past this engagement was lacking. Even though the Indian universities have missed out on a top 200 ranking, having five in the un-ranked top 400 list is a strong performance," said Elizabeth Gibney, a rankings expert at Times Higher Education.

Overall, the California Institute of Technology retained its place at the top of the rankings for the third consecutive year, with Harvard University regaining second place (up from fourth), a position shared with the UK's University of Oxford.

Stanford University slipped from joint second to fourth.