Delhi entered the global top 100 at 99th in the QS Best Student Cities 2027 rankings released on July 22, while being named the world’s most affordable student city. Mumbai climbed seven places to 91st, the highest any Indian city has ranked.
Delhi has been named the world’s most affordable city for students in the QS Best Student Cities 2027 rankings, released on July 22, while Mumbai moved up seven places to 91st globally, leading India’s only four cities in the index.
The rankings cover 150 cities across six indicators: university quality, employer activity, affordability, desirability, student mix, and student view. Delhi entered the global top 100 for the first time, rising from 104th to 99th. It received the highest affordability score of any city in the world, with average annual international tuition fees around US$2,700. The city also ranked 29th globally for employer activity.
Mumbai’s rise from 98th to 91st was the biggest gain among Indian cities this year. It scored 78.3 for employer activity and 84.4 for affordability, finishing with an overall score of 61.8.
Bengaluru fell six places to 114th, the only Indian city to drop this year. QS pointed to its comparatively high international tuition fees, averaging US$5,400 annually, as a contributing factor. Chennai gained five positions to rank 123rd.
Globally, Seoul retained the top spot with a perfect score of 100, followed by Tokyo and London. Melbourne ranked fourth, with Munich and Sydney sharing fifth.
For students at Delhi University, the affordability ranking has a direct read. Delhi’s tuition cost advantage over cities like Bengaluru is substantial on paper. Still, the city’s student view score of 14.6 out of 100, the lowest among the four Indian cities, points to a gap between what the data shows and what students actually report about their experience.
The wave of AI-generated anthropomorphic fruit taking over social media seems to be subliminally pushing a distinct political agenda.
Summer is the time of the year when the weather gets warmer, drinks get cooler, skin gets darker, and hair gets lighter. Friends, fun, and my favourite part – fruit! The richness, ripeness, and freshness of summer fruits are like nothing else. Nothing could make me look at nature’s candy with disdain. Nothing, except turning it into an anthropomorphic abomination and inserting it into repetitive, erotic, soulless storylines.
Generative AI is becoming less of an option and more of a shadow – one that always lingers and hovers around, refusing to leave, latching onto you and suffocating you like a python squeezing the breath out of its prey. Every day, it seems like media algorithms try their best to push some kind of AI-generated, sloppy, brain-numbing absurdity. One such disgrace to the face of the planet and the name of fruit is the AI-generated videos following the lives of humanoid fruit. And this isn’t a localised phenomenon. Media algorithms all over the world are pushing this kind of content.
Why is the algorithm pushing content for which the word “trashy” seems too flattering? Why is it that this content is heavily fetishistic and erotic in nature? And why is such content being force-fed to us? The answers to these questions are intense and multifaceted.
From the usernames of the accounts (@aifood487 and @dumbal30_.ai, to name a couple) posting such content across multiple platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to the storylines they follow, the uncreativity and unoriginality is unmatched. However, there is meaning that goes beyond the mere uncreativity of generative AI. Now, to be fair, fruit has often been used throughout literature as symbolism for sexuality and intimacy. However, in those contexts, themes of tenderness, passion, and self-discovery are emphasised rather than control, humiliation, and degradation.
Assault, violence against women, and male domination emphasise female powerlessness through humanoid fruit
According to a 2022 study by the Zien Journal of Social Sciencesand Humanities, repetition in media serves distinct political purposes. Essentially, repetition convinces an audience that a particular idea is the truth or that a certain ideology is correct. There is a misconception that AI is ultimately neutral. According to computer scientist, Nisheeth Vishnoi, on speaking with the Yale School of Management, “Despite being governed by precise mathematical rules, algorithms can be very brittle, and human biases can creep in, and they’re not really as objective as people think.”
Thus, it is safe to conclude that these repeated themes we see in AI-slop media push a certain political agenda; one that is predominantly right-leaning. The algorithmic combinatorics involved in the generation and re-generation of the same story in different fonts, or in this case, fruit, can be accounted to algorithmic biases of users as well as tech oligarchs who ultimately control what is being propagated and pushed on the platforms they own. Hence, it is fathomable that their platforms push content that aligns with and furthers what tech capitalists find not just profitable, but also politically advantageous.
Stereotypical gender roles and the idea that reproductive autonomy lies completely with men are frequently seen in this kind of content. The pushing of an agenda that emphasises female submission and lack of reproductive autonomy gives a subliminal message: you can’t escape your reproductive responsibility. Beyond disturbing. This makes perfect sense when you also notice that there is a “rape-esque” aspect to generative AI being forced onto users with the whole narrative of “AI is coming whether you like it or not” and “just accept AI.”
Reproductive autonomy lies fully with the male characters, with women facing the consequences of infidelity
But that is not where the unsettling nature of AI slop ends. Often, these videos use bright colours and incredibly cartoonish characters, making it seem like they are targeted at children. This means that the political agenda in question is being forced onto young, malleable minds. Female humiliation and degradation as concepts are being fed to innocent children who are yet to develop a complete worldview. In addition, it is important to notice the incredibly eroticised nature of the videos.
Fruit is personified, and somehow, hypersexualised. Borderline pornographic content is being pushed to children in a colourful, cartoonish costume. I wondered why billionaire techies who have all the power in the world to control the media and hence prevent such sexually explicit content from reaching children do not do anything about it. Then I remembered the relationship billionaires have with children.
Deliberate eroticisation of cartoonish figures that gives a nod to pedophilia
Why is AI slop so soulless? More importantly, how are we accepting it? The simple answer is that brains are getting smoother. In other words, we are being so repeatedly subjected to media that is a full-on disgrace to the realm of art and literature that we no longer comprehend the complexity of soul and depth. The bar is deep in the fiery pits of hell when it comes to modern-day standards for art, music, and literature. Critics, including Dwight Macdonald and Neil Postman, repeatedly explain the “dumbing down” of media and culture.
Macdonald’s essay, A Theory of Mass Culture, beautifully elucidates this. He writes about the dichotomy of culture – how culture is divided into “high culture” or the “traditional” kind that is chronicled in textbooks, and “mass culture”, which is a mass-produced, impersonal commodity that, unlike high culture, requires no intellectual capabilities to consume and relish. This easy-to-produce, easy-to-consume media systematically reduces intellectual capacity and withers away the conscious ability to critique, turning consumers into mindless bots who are willing to enthusiastically accept anything and everything that is thrown at them.
Being fed media that actively disapparates neurons leaves the masses in a dazed state. A dazed, digitally intoxicated, intellectually desensitised population is easier to control. This intoxication also allows you to learn to love your oppressor, an idea that is explored in the dystopian novel Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. The consumption of such slop trains you to simply accept whatever is pushed to you – ideology, policy, or agenda – without question or critique. The masses become hypnotised into a state of anti-intellectual euphoria that allows the oligarchy to function as they please.
Women’s bodies have always been objectified and used as a commodity. Sexually explicit AI fruit videos further this. Hundreds of thousands of viewers engage with this content while another network of individuals (and/or bots) is focused on pushing out more of this mass-produced commodity. Several Reddit forums and other online spaces exist where people teach each other how to create these mass-produced atrocities. In essence, people are learning to capitalise off of the fetishisation of fruit and the humiliation of women, as if the densely patriarchal society we live in hasn’t already sold women for parts for centuries.
Something as stupid, seemingly harmless, and supposedly as insignificant as sexually active fruit that one may deem as “not that deep” is indeed just that deep. It is crucial not to fall victim to any form of mind-numbing cognitive dissolution that may be pushed by the media; retain critical thinking, and hence be able to challenge monopolies. Question and ponder what you see, no matter how “brain-dead” the content itself may come off as. A population that can think for themselves and is not afraid to exercise their intellect will not fall victim to blissful oppression and brainwashing.
Delhi University 2026 admissions process faced document verification concerns; the university plans an AI verification tool to detect fake certificates and altered records.
After detecting multiple cases of AI-generated and digitally manipulated documents during the ongoing admissions process, the University of Delhi (UoD) is planning to develop an artificial intelligence (AI)-based verification tool for the next admission cycle. The proposed system aims to strengthen document verification and detect forged certificates more efficiently.
In its advisory, the university asked applicants to avoid uploading AI-generated, digitally altered or heavily edited documents while applying for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. It said the admission branch had come across manipulated certificates, mark sheets and identity proofs during the verification process, prompting the warning.
Speaking to PTI on Monday, Dean of Admissions Prof. Haneet Gandhi said colleges have reported multiple cases of manipulated documents during the ongoing undergraduate admissions process. She noted that the university has come across digital certificates with QR codes that, upon verification, were found to be fake or AI-generated. In some instances, scanning the QR codes displayed the details of a different person, indicating that the digital records did not match the applicants’ information.
Gandhi told PTI that such cases have been reported across different categories of applications, including those submitted under the Extra-Curricular Activities (ECA) quota, category certificates and other admission documents across colleges. She added that while university and college teams have been identifying manipulated records, verifying documents for over 90,000 applicants is a challenging process.
We will certainly look at developing an AI tool for next year’s admissions so that such cases can be filtered out completely,” she said.
DU has instructed candidates to upload only scanned copies of their original documents. It also cautioned that anyone found submitting fraudulent or AI-altered records at any stage of the admission process could have their candidature or admission cancelled without prior notice, face legal action, and would not be eligible for a refund of the admission fee. The university has further urged applicants to review the documents they have uploaded and ensure they comply with the admission guidelines.
Ahead of the 2026–27 academic session, DU has set up two joint control rooms, ordered bilingual anti-ragging banners, and directed colleges to strictly implement anti-ragging measures before classes begin on July 28.
The University of Delhi held an online meeting on July 20 with college principals, heads of departments, hostel authorities, DUSU office-bearers, and Delhi Police to finalise anti-ragging arrangements before the arrival of the new batch, in accordance with the academic calendar notified by the university. As part of the measures, DU will establish two joint control rooms – one each on the North and South Campuses – from July 28 to August 7, providing students and college authorities with a direct channel to report incidents of ragging.
The university has also directed colleges, departments, and hostels to install bilingual (English and Hindi) anti-ragging banners at strategic locations, prominently display rules prohibiting ragging, and restrict the entry of outsiders into their premises. Delhi Police will deploy women personnel in plain clothes both within university campuses and outside individual colleges. The university has also stated that women’s colleges will receive additional police assistance.
In line with the Supreme Court’s directions on ragging and UGC regulations, all incoming students and their parents or guardians must submit an anti-ragging undertaking through the UGC’s official anti-ragging portal at the time of admission. Colleges have further been instructed to strictly enforce Ordinances XV-B and XV-C of the University of Delhi, along with the provisions of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.
These measures form part of the UGC Regulations on Curbing the Menace of Ragging in Higher Educational Institutions, 2009, which are mandatory for all higher educational institutions and were framed following Supreme Court directions on preventing ragging.
A comparison with previous years shows that the university’s anti-ragging framework has remained largely unchanged. In 2022, DU operated joint control rooms from November 2 to 11, along with NCC/NSS vigilance squads and police deployment outside colleges. In 2024, it issued an 11-point anti-ragging notification, set up control rooms from August 1 to 10, detailed disciplinary penalties, and observed Anti-Ragging Day on August 12. In 2025, the university retained the same structure, with control rooms functioning from August 1 to 8 and the addition of the Himmat app and campus security helpline numbers.
For 2026, the principal change is the timeline. The control rooms will operate from July 28 to August 7, with the existing anti-ragging framework brought forward to coincide with the earlier commencement of the academic session rather than introducing significant new structural measures.
From first-round seat allocation to college verifications and spot rounds, here’s a comprehensive guide to Delhi University’s CSAS.
Every year, lakhs of students from across India set their sights on Delhi University, one of the country’s most reputed and competitive educational institutions. With admissions now conducted entirely through the Common Seat Allocation System (CSAS) based on CUET-UG scores, understanding the admission calendar has become just as important as securing a good score.
The University of Delhi has officially released the CSAS (UG) 2026 schedule, outlining every major milestone – from seat allocation and document verification to fee payment and spot rounds. Now that the first-round seat allocation has been completed, here is a comprehensive breakdown of the next steps in the admission process.
1. First-Round Seat Allocation – July 16 (5:00 pm)
The first CSAS allocation list was released on July 16, marking the beginning of the formal admission process. Each candidate is allotted the highest possible programme-college combination based on their CUET scores, category, reservation, percentile, and the preference order submitted during CSAS registration.
Receiving a lower preference in the first round does not mark the end of the admission process. Candidates who accept their allotted seat can still opt for an upgrade and be considered for higher preferences in the subsequent rounds.
2. Acceptance of the Allocated Seat – July 16 to July 18
After receiving an allocation, candidates are required to accept their allotted seat within the prescribed deadline to continue with the admission process. Failure to do so can result in the automatic forfeiture of the seat, making the candidate ineligible to retain that allocation in subsequent rounds.
Seat acceptance, however, does not conclude the admission process. It simply initiates the document verification stage. Even candidates wishing to upgrade their seat must first accept their current allocation.
3. Online Document Verification and Approval by Colleges – July 16 to July 20 (11:59 pm)
Once a candidate accepts the allotted seat, the respective college examines the uploaded documents, verifies eligibility criteria, and confirms admission credentials.
Colleges retain the authority to raise queries or reject applications if discrepancies are found in the submitted documents or if the candidate fails to meet subject-specific eligibility requirements. The first round of online document verification and approval is completed during this period.
4. Online Payment of Admission Fees – July 21 (Till 11:59 pm)
Following successful document verification, candidates are required to pay the admission fee by July 21. Admission is considered officially confirmed only after the fee payment is completed.
Failure to pay the fee within the deadline results in cancellation of the allotted seat, irrespective of the verification status.
Furthermore, only after paying the admission fee do candidates become eligible to exercise the Freeze or Upgrade option for subsequent allocation rounds.
5. Second-Round Seat Allocation – July 25 (12 Noon)
Candidates who opted for an upgrade after confirming their admission become eligible for the second round of seat allocation. This round follows the same procedure as the first and includes the following stages:
Seat Acceptance: July 25 to July 26 (till 11:59 pm)
Online Document Verification and Approval by Colleges: July 25 to July 27 (till 11:59 pm)
Online Fee Payment: July 28 (till 11:59 pm)
These steps formally secure admission for candidates allotted seats in the second round and conclude the regular rounds of admission.
6. Mid-Entry Window
Candidates who failed to register during the original CSAS application window are not entirely excluded from the admission process. After the completion of the second allocation round, Delhi University released a Mid-Entry facility.
Applicants registering through this route become eligible only for seats that remain vacant after the regular rounds and are considered strictly based on merit and seat availability
7. Spot Admission Rounds
If vacancies remain after the regular allocation rounds, Delhi University conducts Spot Admission Rounds. Unlike the earlier rounds, candidates participating in Spot Admissions generally compete only for the seats displayed as vacant at that stage.
Spot rounds usually represent the final opportunity to secure admission for the academic session. Once these rounds conclude, the admission process for the academic year formally comes to an end.
With the release of Delhi University’s academic calendar, the new academic session is scheduled to commence on July 28, while additional allocation rounds and spot admissions may continue simultaneously. Students admitted in later rounds are expected to join classes as per the University’s guidelines without losing their admission rights.
The CSAS admission process, conducted based on CUET-UG scores, has been designed to ensure greater transparency, fairness, and flexibility in undergraduate admissions. Through upgrades, mid-entry, and spot admission rounds, candidates receive multiple opportunities to secure admission to one of India’s most prestigious universities.
For applicants, success during the admission season depends not only on a strong CUET score but also on staying informed, meeting deadlines, and taking timely action at every stage of the process.
Delhi hasn’t opened a new arts, science, or commerce college since 1995 – an RTI reveals why this year’s DU admission crunch is worse than ever, and whether Veer Savarkar College could finally change that.
As DU’s admission season unfolds, the Common Seat Allocation System (CSAS) rush, seat allocation portals, and the cutoff stress for one of the most sought-after undergraduate systems in the country all tell a familiar story. But an RTI reply has revealed a less familiar one: Delhi University has not opened a new conventional arts, science, or commerce college in 31 years.
The last time it did was in 1995, with the founding of Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences (BCAS) in Dwarka. Every institution added to DU since then has been a specialised professional college: nursing schools, a dental institute, a physiotherapy college, not a general undergraduate college of the kind that defines DU’s core identity.
This year, 2,73,751 candidates registered for DU’s undergraduate admissions. Of these, 2,18,284 completed Phase 1 of the process, and 2,08,043 locked in their programme and college preferences.
Against this, DU’s 69 colleges and departments offer just 71,624 seats across 73 programmes, meaning roughly 3.8 registered applicants for every seat, or close to three serious contenders per seat.
The RTI data maps DU’s growth across three phases:
1881–1946 (8 colleges): The founding era gave DU the colleges whose names still carry weight in every admission conversation today, St Stephen’s (1881), Hindu College (1899), Ramjas (1917), Indraprastha College for Women (1924), Zakir Husain Delhi College (1925), and Shri Ram College of Commerce (1926).
1947–2000 (76 colleges): Post-independence India expanded DU at a pace it has never matched since. Hansraj College and Miranda House opened in 1948; Lady Shri Ram College for Women in 1956; Kirori Mal College in 1957; Sri Venkateswara College in 1961; Gargi College in 1967; Jesus and Mary College in 1968; Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies in 1987; and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College in 1990. This era closed with Bhaskaracharya College in 1995, DU’s last conventional undergraduate college.
2001–2019 (just 7 institutions): In the two decades after 1995, only seven institutions were added to the cohort, and every one was a professional healthcare, education, or rehabilitation college: the School of Rehabilitation Sciences (2002), Durgabai Deshmukh College of Special Education (2006), Holy Family College of Nursing (2011), Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences (2013), and Florence Nightingale College of Nursing (2019) among them.
Since 2014, DU has added exactly one institution: Florence Nightingale College of Nursing in 2019. Like every addition before it, stretching back to 1995, it too was a specialised healthcare college, and not a single functional general undergraduate college was added.
This also traces an older separate episode: in 2020, then-Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal wrote to the Union Education Ministry asking it to amend Section 5(2) of the Delhi University Act, 1922, arguing that the Act’s requirement that all new Delhi colleges affiliate with DU had capped the university’s capacity for three decades and was shutting out lakhs of Class 12 graduates every year.
On January 3, 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for Veer Savarkar College in Roshanpura, Najafgarh, alongside plans for new East (Surajmal Vihar) and West (Dwarka Sector 22) campuses.
Built at an estimated cost of ₹140 crore with 24 classrooms and a built-up area of over 18,800 square metres, it has been described by DU’s Vice-Chancellor Prof. Yogesh Singh as the university’s first new college in roughly three decades. And because the college was not yet operational when the RTI data was compiled, it doesn’t appear in the RTI’s count.
According to recent reporting, Veer Savarkar College may begin functioning this academic year, but not from its own building, since campus construction is still incomplete.
DU is reportedly planning to run its first-year classes out of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College’s campus instead, with DU’s administration having already agreed to the arrangement pending formal university approval. If this goes ahead, it would be the first addition to DU’s conventional undergraduate seat count since 1995.
DU has formed a six-member committee to review seat availability in its one-year postgraduate programmes following ABVP’s protest over limited admissions for students completing the fourth year under FYUP.
On Friday, July 17, students gathered outside the Arts Faculty, University of Delhi (DU), as the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) protested the limited number of seats in the university’s one-year postgraduate programmes, arguing that many students completing the fourth year of the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) could be left without admission opportunities.
As students from colleges across the university joined the protest, ABVP submitted a memorandum to DU Registrar Prof. Vikas Gupta, urging the administration to increase the intake across all one-year postgraduate courses.
The issue has come into sharper focus this year as the first batch of students completing FYUP becomes eligible for admission to one-year master’s programmes. As thousands of students prepare to move to postgraduate studies, concerns over limited seats have intensified. ABVP argues that while the number of eligible students has increased significantly, postgraduate intake has remained largely unchanged, leaving many students uncertain about their admission prospects.
In response to the protest, the university formed a six-member committee to review the matter. The panel is expected to arrive at a decision within 10 days.
According to Millennium Post, the committee will be chaired by the Dean (Academic Affairs), with the Dean (Admissions), Dean (Social Work), Head of the Department of Chemistry, Joint Registrar (Legal), and Deputy Registrar (Recruitment and Promotion) serving as members.
Welcoming the university’s decision to form the committee, ABVP Delhi State Secretary Sarthak Sharma called it a positive step and urged the administration to resolve the issue at the earliest.
As reported by The Tribune, Sharma said, “The University of Delhi remains the first choice for lakhs of students across the country. However, the inadequate number of seats under the current admission system is doing grave injustice to students’ academic aspirations.”
“The university administration must immediately enhance the number of seats to ensure that no deserving student is denied access to higher education due to seat constraints”, he added.
The organisation said it hopes the committee will recommend an increase in seats. However, it added that it would intensify its protest if the university does not take a favourable decision after the committee submits its report.
As DUSU elections approach, Delhi University has enforced a strict campaign code banning all printed materials and capping vehicles, with violations risking nomination cancellation.
With the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections approaching, the university has laid out firm rules for how candidates may campaign. The guidelines were reiterated at a meeting held on Thursday at the Proctor’s Office, where University Proctor Prof. Manoj Kumar Singh briefed DUSU office-bearers and student body representatives on the code of conduct, in accordance with directions from the Delhi High Court and the
Lyngdoh Committee.
The most visible restriction concerns campaign materials. Printed materials are completely banned. Candidates may put up only handmade posters, and only on the designated Wall of Democracy. Billboards, printed or digital, and banners suspended from poles are not permitted anywhere on or around campus.
Vehicle use during campaigning has also been capped. Each candidate is allowed a maximum of five cars. Tractors, JCBs, and animals are not permitted, and cars with tinted glass or missing number plates are strictly prohibited.
Freebies are out too. Distribution of gifts, souvenirs, canopies, umbrellas, or any promotional material bearing a candidate’s name has been banned. The university has made clear that if such material is found, the concerned candidate’s nomination will be cancelled.
Only five students will be allowed inside colleges for campaigning. In girls’ college hostels, only girls will be permitted to enter. Candidates wishing to hold public meetings on campus must inform the Proctor’s Office in advance.
The same protocols are to be communicated to all college authorities, while the 2026-27 Code of Conduct remains awaited.
Delhi University has announced a stricter code of conduct for the 2026 DUSU elections. It introduced tighter regulations on campaigning, expenditure, and campus defacement.
With the announcement of the upcoming DUSU elections, the university administration has released a detailed set of guidelines that all candidates and student organisations must follow during the election period. The rules draw heavily from the recommendations of the Lyngdoh Committee, which governs student union elections across universities in India.
Among the most significant changes is a complete ban on defacing university property. Candidates have been prohibited from putting up posters, graffiti, or wall paintings on campus buildings and other public spaces. The administration has instead directed students to use only designated spaces approved by the university for election publicity. Digital campaigning and direct interaction with students have also been encouraged over large-scale physical campaigning.
The university has also reiterated strict expenditure limits for candidates. Contestants are required to maintain detailed records of campaign expenses and submit them to the election authorities within the prescribed timeline. Any candidate found violating the spending cap or concealing campaign expenses may face disqualification from the election process.
To strengthen enforcement, Delhi University has constituted monitoring committees to oversee campaign activities across university departments. Election officials and college administrations will monitor violations of the code of conduct and disruptions to academic activities. Candidates found violating the prescribed norms may face disciplinary action in addition to electoral penalties.
The administration stated that the revised rules are intended to create a level playing field for all candidates while reducing environmental damage and ensuring that normal academic functioning is not affected during the election period. Students have been urged to conduct campaigns responsibly and in accordance with university regulations.
The announcement comes amid renewed attention on student politics in Delhi University, where election campaigns have historically witnessed extensive poster campaigns, large rallies, and complaints regarding campus defacement. By reinforcing stricter compliance with the Lyngdoh Committee guidelines, the university aims to make the 2026 DUSU elections more transparent, orderly, and sustainable.
ABVP staged a protest at Delhi University against the shortage of seats in one-year PG programmes, with the demonstration led by Aryan Mann.
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) staged a protest at Delhi University, drawing attention to the minuscule number of seats available for students seeking a postgraduate diploma after completing their fourth year. Their chief demand was that the total number of seats should be increased, as the current setup has “betrayed” the aspirations of the students.
The university administration had announced that all students completing the fourth year, whether from honours or programme courses, would get an opportunity to take admission to the one-year course on the basis of merit. However, there are only limited seats for students who have completed the fourth year.”
Further highlighting the disparity between students opting for the conventional two-year route and those coming in straight after their fourth year, the ABVP chief stated,
Those who are willing to do masters for 2 years, they have more 4,000-5,000 seats; however, those who have completed their fourth year are only offered 1,000 seats.”
“The one course that has been increased in DU, thousands of students come from third and fourth year to enroll in that said course. However, the seats for MA are very low, so ABVP demands that the number of seats for the MA course be officially increased.”
The protest comes amid growing scrutiny of the one-year PG programme’s rollout, with the university’s official seat matrix listing roughly 1,068 seats spread across 45 programmes, a fraction of the number of students who stayed on for the additional fourth year. Notably, the intake for the one-year route is calculated as a percentage of each department’s pre-existing sanctioned strength rather than the actual number of fourth-year completers, a formula finalised only months after most students had already committed to the extra year.
