Rajasthan Governor Haribhau Bagde has said universities should give students an education that goes beyond textbooks and helps them understand life, develop intellectual ability and gain wisdom.

The Governor made the statement in his speech at the eighth convocation of Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Rajasthan Sanskrit University in Jaipur on Monday. He said the education must be practical for the students and must make them capable of distinguishing right from wrong.

Governor's view on higher education

According to Bagde, the function of universities shouldn't be restricted to only teaching those things which are mentioned in textbooks. As per the Governor, the students require education which increases their awareness and intellectual abilities and gives them wisdom.

His statement is in accordance with his earlier statements on higher education. In June 2025, he had stated that the purpose of education must not be confined to giving the students degrees. The schools, colleges, and universities must teach the students both textbook knowledge and practical knowledge.

In March 2025, in his speech at the IGNOU convocation in Jaipur, Bagde had also advised the students to read the books which contain information about life and changing circumstances instead of limiting themselves to syllabus-based books. 

Haribhau Bagde calls for wider use of Sanskrit 

The Governor also made references to Sanskrit education and its future. According to Bagde, Sanskrit can grow faster if it gets utilized on more occasions. The Governor suggested that the language must be popularized more among the public. In addition, Bagde emphasized that Sanskrit is one of the most ancient languages and, in the past, had been transmitted orally.

Previously, Bagde mentioned that there was a need to promote Sanskrit. During the seventh convocation of the same university in April 2025, he became one of the leaders advocating for the revival and popularization of the language.

Governor draws attention to India's traditional knowledge

Besides, Bagde paid attention to the centuries-old experience of India in the field of knowledge and education. Speaking about Nalanda, Bagde specifically said knowledge could not be destroyed even when Nalanda's library was burnt.

Moreover, Bagde emphasized the contribution of India to science and technologies and asserted that several features of India's traditional knowledge had subsequently been presented as Western accomplishments.

Such topics have previously been mentioned by Bagde in his education-related speeches. Thus, in March 2025, he spoke about connecting students with Indian knowledge and science and stressed that education must increase their intellectual abilities.

PhD degrees and gold medals presented

Convocation also witnessed the conferring of degrees and awards for the students. Bagde conferred PhD degrees and gold medals to meritorious students and other degrees in the function. He launched the website of Rajasthan Mantra Pratishthan, which was set up by the initiative of the university. 

Bagde also highlighted the teachings of the social reformer Ramanandacharya and also talked about the significance of saints and spiritual leaders in the well-being of the society.

The latest statement by the Governor once again raised the question regarding higher education that whether the learning of universities should conclude with the completion of a syllabus or whether students should have the capability of applying their learning in practical life as well.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) has released the UGC NET June 2026 re-examination admit card for candidates appearing for the English, Commerce and Sociology papers. Candidates can now download their hall tickets from the official UGC NET website, ugcnet.nta.nic.in.

The re-examination will be held on September 9 and 10, 2026, following NTA's decision to conduct fresh tests for the three subjects after complaints were raised over errors and irregularities in the original question papers.

UGC NET Admit Card 2026: Download link

Candidates appearing for the UGC NET June 2026 re-examination can download their admit cards by visiting ugcnet.nta.nic.in and accessing the relevant admit-card link under the Candidate Activity section.

Candidates will need their application number and password or other login credentials specified by NTA to access the hall ticket.

Direct UGC NET Admit Card 2026 download link: Click here

UGC NET June 2026 re-exam dates and timings

The NTA re-examination schedule for the three subjects is as follows:

Candidates must follow the date, shift and examination-centre details printed on their individual admit cards, as these will be the final details applicable to them.

Why is UGC NET 2026 being conducted again for three subjects?

NTA announced the re-examination after an expert committee examined complaints received about the English, Commerce and Sociology question papers from the June 2026 session.

According to the agency, the review identified several issues, including factual, typographical, translation and language-related errors. The committee also noted instances of repeated questions and other problems affecting the quality of the papers.

NTA subsequently decided that the three examinations should be conducted afresh rather than resolving the problems only through the question-challenge and deletion process.

The remaining 84 UGC NET subjects were not included in the re-examination.

Will candidates have to pay the UGC NET re-exam fee again?

No. Candidates appearing for the re-examination of English, Commerce or Sociology do not have to pay an additional examination fee, according to NTA.

UGC NET Admit Card 2026: Details candidates should verify

After downloading the hall ticket, candidates should carefully check:

• Name and other personal details
• Application number
• Subject
• Examination date
• Shift and reporting time
• Examination centre and address
• Candidate photograph and other details mentioned on the admit card

Any discrepancy should be brought to the attention of NTA at the earliest. Candidates should also read the examination-day instructions printed on the hall ticket and make arrangements to reach the allotted centre before the reporting time.

How to download UGC NET Admit Card 2026

Candidates can follow these steps to download their re-examination hall ticket:

Step 1: Visit ugcnet.nta.nic.in.

Step 2: Open the admit-card link for the UGC NET June 2026 re-examination.

Step 3: Enter the required login credentials.

Step 4: Submit the details to access the admit card.

Step 5: Download and save the hall ticket.

Step 6: Take a printout for the examination day.

Candidates appearing for the UGC NET June 2026 re-examination should download their admit cards in advance and check all examination details carefully before reaching the centre.

The Supreme Court has asked a NEET-UG 2026 candidate, who alleged that his score was reduced from 603 marks to just 32 without any explanation, to approach the appropriate High Court for relief.

The candidate had moved the Supreme Court directly under Article 32 of the Constitution, raising concerns over the alleged discrepancy in his NEET-UG result. However, the court allowed him to withdraw his petition and granted him the liberty to approach the High Court with his grievance.

The Supreme Court's order does not determine whether the alleged change in marks actually took place or whether there was an error in the candidate's result. The matter will now have to be examined by the appropriate High Court based on the records and evidence presented by the petitioner.

The case has emerged amid wider concerns raised by several NEET-UG 2026 candidates over alleged discrepancies between their OMR responses and final scorecards. Some aspirants have sought clarification from the National Testing Agency (NTA) regarding the calculation of their marks and the evaluation of their answer sheets.

In one such case, Maharashtra candidate Soham Gawte approached the Bombay High Court, claiming that his OMR responses indicated a score of around 522 marks, while the scorecard issued by the NTA showed only 95 marks.

The issue has also generated widespread discussion on social media, where several candidates have shared images of their OMR sheets, answer keys and scorecards while alleging errors in evaluation or marks calculation.

However, the NTA has cautioned candidates against relying on documents circulating online without verification. The agency has warned that some OMR sheets and scorecards shared on social media may have been digitally manipulated or generated using artificial intelligence.

Against this backdrop, the latest petition has drawn attention because of the substantial difference alleged by the candidate, who claimed that his marks were initially displayed as 603 before being shown as 32.

While the Supreme Court has not commented on the merits of the allegation, the case adds to the continuing scrutiny surrounding the NEET-UG 2026 examination and result process.

Candidates and parents have increasingly sought greater transparency regarding the evaluation process, calculation of marks, OMR records and discrepancies in final scorecards. The High Court proceedings, if pursued by the petitioner, may provide an opportunity for the alleged discrepancy to be examined through official records.

The development once again underlines the importance of transparent evaluation and clear grievance-redressal mechanisms in high-stakes competitive examinations such as NEET-UG, where even a small discrepancy can significantly affect a student's academic and professional future.

A seven-year-old girl who caught public's fancy on social media for hopping nearly 400 metres to reach her school despite having physical disability will get complete medical treatment from the state government.

Ragini, a class 1 student of Primary School Digheda in Ballia district's Manier area, had gone viral after her video of hopping on one leg to reach the school went viral. The girl from Ranipur village in Manier area has learnt to deal with most of her chores despite her disability.

Her family says a road accident when she was barely six months old left her with a serious leg injury. But that has not stopped the determined girl from wanting to go to school. Although her school is about 400 metres away from her house, she often reaches there by hopping on to her left leg, sometimes helped by her family members.

District Magistrate Mangla Prasad Singh said after interacting with her family, a team of doctors including an orthopaedist and senior-most doctor examined the girl and she would undergo tests at BHU (Banaras Hindu University) after which the medical team will decide if she needs any specific kind of treatment or surgery.

The entire treatment of the girl will be taken care of by the state government.

The District Magistrate also visited the girl's home with other officials where he interacted with her family to know about her medical and personal needs. The district administration has gifted two tricycles, books, a school bag, toys and chocolates to the little girl.

Ragini's mother, Babita Devi said that they were not able to afford any further treatment as her father is a labourer. But the determined little girl wanted to study and would watch other kids going to the school with her bag and ask them to take her too.

The officials have now assured the family that Ragini's financial needs would not be a problem. For the determined little girl, whose inspirational video has gone viral on social media, the state government's support has opened up a new hope that perhaps one day soon she would be able to stand and walk on her own.

Private unaided recognised schools in Delhi have been told to verify the vacant seats of Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and freeship from class 2 onwards by September 3. The directive comes as an effort to ensure that schools allocate seats to eligible candidates through the prescribed admission process.

As per the order issued by the Directorate of Education (DoE) on August 27, all schools, except minority educational institutions, shall cross-verify the vacancies provided by the Directorate. In case of a discrepancy, a representation needs to be made to the concerned education zone within the stipulated time. The district deputy directors of education shall scrutinise such representations and submit their recommendations by September 5.

The verification of vacancies comes as an important step for parents seeking admission under EWS or freeship as the vacancies confirmed by the school will subsequently be put up for allotment through a computerised draw of lots.

Schools which do not make a representation in the prescribed format and time shall be deemed to have agreed with the vacancies provided by the Directorate. The vacancies thus verified shall be taken up for allotment to eligible candidates.

The DoE also clarified that no school will be able to deny admission to a candidate who has been selected through the computerised draw of lots on the grounds that there were no vacancies in the school. A strict action will be taken against schools which deny admission to such candidates as it will be deemed to be a violation of the Delhi School Education Act and Rules, 1973 and Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009.

The recent step has been taken as a direction from the Delhi High Court in Justice for All vs Directorate of Education case. The bench had remarked that the vacant EWS seats in the classes from 2 onwards need to be filled up.

Section 12 of the RTE Act mandates private unaided recognised schools to provide free and compulsory education to at least 25 per cent of children belonging to the weaker sections and disadvantaged groups at the entry level of elementary school.

The Delhi government has been conducting an online process for admission of candidates belonging to EWS and freeship from class 2 onwards in private unaided recognised schools with land in government ownership since 2021-22 academic session. It was in 2018 that the decision to fill the vacant EWS seats through a draw of lots was taken as the admission process was similar to the entry-level EWS and disadvantaged group admission process.

The step comes as a reminder to parents to keep a watch on the admissions as the vacant seats in EWS and freeship category from class 2 will go through a computerised draw of lots. Parents will need to keep track of the subsequent notifications from the Directorate of Education for the applications and allotment of the seats.

In a major relief for law students, and in a severe rebuke to the Bar Council of India (BCI), the Supreme Court has clarified that neither BCI nor State Bar Councils have “any authority to act against law students”.

The Supreme Court’s observations came while hearing a petition challenging the action of the BCI which had directed the Hyderabad-based NALSAR University to cancel the admission process for the 2026 batch, and probe into allegations of a campaign against the Chief Justice of India (CJI) by some students and faculty members.

The Supreme Court said that disciplinary authority over law students rests with the educational institutes as well as “other authorities” as provided in the regulations, and not with the Bar Council of India or the State Bar Councils.

A bench of the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana was hearing a petition filed by two alumni of the NALSAR University, Mihira Sood and Abhishek Tiwari, who sought a declaration that the BCI had no authority to take action against the NALSAR students, and faculty members.

During the hearing, the Supreme Court noted that the directions issued by the BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra on August 13, which included halting the admission process of students for the 2026 batch at the NALSAR University, and initiating an inquiry into the allegations of campaign against the CJI by some students and faculty members, was issued “without any authority of law”.

The controversy started after some students of the NALSAR University allegedly protested against the proposal to invite the CJI for the convocation of the university.

The issue saw a massive debate on the free speech rights of the students, and the disciplinary jurisdiction of the BCI over law universities, and law students in general. In what was perceived as a quick reaction to the protests and criticism from all quarters, the BCI Chairman rescinded his directions within an hour of issuing them, and apologised to the NALSAR students for the same.

However, the two petitioners, Mihira Sood and Abhishek Tiwari, challenged the very authority of the BCI to take disciplinary action against the NALSAR students, and the faculty members, citing that even the rescinding of the order did not answer the fundamental question with regards to the legal authority of the BCI over law students and institutes.

Senior Advocate K Parmweshwar, appearing for the petitioner, sought clarification from the Supreme Court on the legal authority of the BCI to take disciplinary action against the NALSAR students and faculty members. In response, the BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra informed the Court that the impugned directions had been withdrawn, and that the matter had been closed following extensive discussion within the Bar Council.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court found that the matter requires its attention as it pertains to the disciplinary jurisdiction of the BCI, and observes that the “disciplinary jurisdiction of the Bar Council of India or the State Bar Councils does not extend to law students till they are enrolled as advocates”.

While disposing of the petition, the Supreme Court held that “the communication… issued and withdrawn by the BCI on 13.8.2023 is issued without any authority of law”.Notably, the Supreme Court also ordered that its earlier interim order protecting the NALSAR students and faculty members from any action by the BCI and the State Bar Councils shall remain in force.The Supreme Court’s order has been seen as a major relief for law students across the country, and a stern reminder to the BCI about the limits of its disciplinary jurisdiction 

What began with Rs 800, a leaking cowshed and four children has grown into an educational journey that has changed the lives of more than 2,000 children in Assam.

Uttam Teron started teaching children from remote and disadvantaged communities at a time when many of them had little or no access to formal schooling. He had limited resources, no institutional funding and no team of teachers. But he had a simple belief — a child’s circumstances should not decide how far they can go in life.

Teron’s journey began after he noticed children from remote areas spending their days playing in mud and floodwater, with few opportunities to study. Determined to do something, he opened a makeshift classroom in a cowshed and began teaching four children.

The conditions were far from ideal. The roof leaked and there were hardly any resources. Teron began reaching out to people for help, sending hundreds of emails asking for whatever they could spare — old books, clothes, bamboo, tin sheets and other materials that could make the learning space more suitable for children.

The response was initially limited. But Teron continued.

His original idea was modest. He wanted to prepare the children well enough for them to eventually join government schools. However, the children's parents had a different request: they wanted him to continue teaching their children until Class 10.

Teron agreed.

That decision gradually transformed his small initiative into what would become Parijat Academy, a school and residential learning space for children from some of Assam’s most remote communities.

Today, the academy has educated more than 2,000 children. Around 50 students currently live and study there, receiving an education that goes beyond textbooks and examinations.

Students are taught computers, weaving, sewing, sports and dance alongside their regular academic lessons. The idea is to help children develop practical skills, confidence and the ability to imagine a future beyond the limitations of their circumstances.

For Teron, education has never been simply about producing students who can pass examinations. It is about giving children choices.

The impact of that philosophy can be seen in the lives of his former students. Some have gone on to become professionals, including police officers, while others have returned to their communities to contribute in their own ways.

Their journeys have also come full circle. The children who once studied in Teron’s humble learning centre are now helping others — reflecting the very purpose behind his work.

From a leaking cowshed and four students to an institution that has touched the lives of over 2,000 children, Teron’s story is a reminder that meaningful change does not always begin with money or infrastructure. Sometimes, it begins with one person deciding that a child deserves a chance.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested five more people in its ongoing probe into digital arrest frauds under Operation Chakra-VI, taking the total number of arrests across three cases to eight.

The latest arrests come after the agency conducted coordinated searches at 89 locations across 20 states in connection with three major digital arrest cases linked to BITS Pilani, Gujarat and Karnataka.

The cases involve victims who were allegedly kept under “digital arrest” for prolonged periods and forced to transfer large sums of money to accounts controlled or arranged by the accused.

In the BITS Pilani-linked case, the victim was allegedly kept under digital arrest for around three months and defrauded of Rs 7.67 crore by individuals posing as police officers. In a separate case registered in Gujarat, another victim was allegedly held under digital arrest for three months and lost Rs 19.24 crore.

The third case, registered in Karnataka, involves a victim who was allegedly subjected to digital arrest for nearly a month and defrauded of Rs 15.45 crore.

The CBI had earlier arrested three people following its searches. They were identified as Akash from Haryana, Raja Karmakar from Kolkata and Jyoti Rani.

According to the agency, Akash allegedly received Rs 1.95 crore of the fraud proceeds in a bank account and transferred the money onward on the same day. Raja Karmakar was allegedly involved in routing Rs 1.5 crore through his firm's account, while Jyoti Rani allegedly withdrew part of the money in cash and transferred the remaining funds to other accounts.

The CBI has now arrested Sanket Bastwar and Pankaj Damade, both from Itarsi, along with Arif alias King Bhai, Harish Purushottam Yadav alias Harry from New Delhi and Shashank Singh alias Ravi from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh.

The agency alleges that Bastwar and Damade arranged a bank account, received fraud proceeds and helped move the money through different channels. Arif, Harish and Shashank were allegedly involved in arranging another bank account used to receive money from a digital arrest victim and subsequently routing the funds through multiple accounts.

Investigators have also alleged that the three installed a malicious APK file on the account holder's mobile phone. The application was allegedly used to intercept bank SMS alerts and facilitate control over the account.

With these arrests, the number of accused apprehended in the three cases has risen to eight. The CBI said its investigation is continuing to identify and apprehend other members of the alleged network, while further investigation into the cases remains underway.

A medical intern at Calcutta National Medical College & Hospital (CNMCH), Kolkata, has apologised after photographs and videos of her posing with newborn babies inside hospital premises triggered criticism on social media over patient privacy and consent.

The intern, identified as Sudeshna Mondal, had shared images and videos of herself holding newborns in areas identified as the hospital's neonatal and labour room sections. The posts later attracted widespread attention online, with users questioning whether photographs of newborn patients should be shared publicly, even when family members have allegedly given consent.

The controversy gained further attention after Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, popularly known as TheLiverDoc, asked Mondal to remove the posts. Responding to one of her posts, he warned that the matter could potentially lead to serious consequences and suggested that a complaint could be made to the National Medical Commission (NMC).

Initially, Mondal said she had obtained consent from family members and postgraduate doctors before taking the photographs. She also explained that the pictures were taken as a personal “memory”. However, as criticism continued to grow, she removed the posts and issued a public apology on X.

In her apology, Mondal acknowledged the sensitivity surrounding newborns and said she genuinely did not realise that sharing the photographs was inappropriate. She also said she would not post further photographs of babies, regardless of whether consent had been obtained.

The intern further addressed concerns about hygiene and sanitisation inside the labour room complex. She said she had sanitised her hands, watch and thread before entering the area.

Her apology, however, did not end the online debate. While some users accepted that she had acknowledged her mistake and removed the content, others argued that medical professionals have a heightened responsibility when dealing with vulnerable patients, particularly newborns.

One doctor suggested that the criticism was partly linked to Mondal's social media visibility, while advising her to avoid sharing sensitive hospital-related content online. Another user said mistakes can happen and welcomed her decision to learn from the episode.

Others took a firmer view, stressing that patients should not be treated as objects for photographs and questioning whether parental consent alone should be considered sufficient when posting images of newborns on public platforms.

There were also claims online that Mondal had been summoned by college authorities and asked to apologise. She later denied this, saying she had received no pressure or inquiry from her college authorities and that neither her batchmates nor postgraduate doctors had asked her to delete the posts.

Mondal said she decided to remove the content after seeing TheLiverDoc's post and because she did not want the controversy to add to the pressure of her already hectic medical rotation.

The episode has once again brought attention to the difficult line between personal social media use and professional responsibilities in healthcare, particularly when patients are involved.

Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief Tukaram Mundhe was left stunned by the alleged food-label tampering operation that was discovered in Navi Mumbai. One firm was found to be altering expiry dates and nutritional information of packaged food items that are to be exported.

FDA along with Turbhe police conducted a raid and arrested the 12 people in the case. Nearly 5,000 cartons of packaged food worth around Rs 75.21 lakh were seized during the raid. The authorities said that chemicals to scratch off the original manufacturing and expiry dates and machines to print new information were also recovered. Action has been taken against 12 people in relation to the alleged racket.

The raid came after the Crime Branch’s Central Cell received intelligence about the original expiry dates of various food items being removed and replaced with comparatively later dates. Senior Inspector Ajay Shinde conducted the search of the warehouse in the presence of the media on 24 August and found food items meant for relabelling. As per the police case document, the original manufacturing and expiry dates of the items were either scratched off or removed by chemical action, and fresh dates were printed and pasted. The police also allegedly recovered stock of labels and other machinery used for the alleged activity. Mundhe said that the racket was systematic and well-organized, and expressed his shock at the large-scale operation.

The police said that several items recovered from the warehouse had already expired or was about to expire. The investigating agencies allegedly found products with future manufacturing dates, questioning the authenticity of the given information.

Alleged fraud also involved changing nutritional and ingredient information of the items. FDA found several labels that were supposedly altered to fulfill the specific needs of foreign markets. Nestle’s Maggi noodles and PepsiCo’s Kurkure were among the items whose labels were changed. The altered Maggi packet included the “Product of India” information, while one of the Kurkure packets was found to have a bilingual English-French label, with modified ingredient quantity, calorie information, and serving size.

Lay’s, Kurkure, Maggi Masala Noodles, Knorr Mushroom Soup, Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, Thums Up, and Limca were among the other famous brands whose products were allegedly relabelled and ready for export.

The warehouse is reported to be owned by Sadhana Enterprises. As per the government’s release and police case document, the accused company’s owner claimed to be working for 19 exporters. Following the raid, FDA conducted the paperwork and took action against 12 people in relation to the case.

It is noteworthy that the police case does not involve PepsiCo, Nestle, Coca-Cola, or Unilever in the alleged tampering activity. The authorities clarified that the investigation revolved around the activities conducted in the warehouse.

Mundhe emphasized the need for greater responsibility from companies to ensure that their brand, packing, and sales of food items comply with relevant guidelines and regulations. This includes monitoring the sales of branded items in foreign markets.

Mumbai police have arrested Rutuja Patil who secured the seventh rank in the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) Drug Inspector (Group-B) examination in the alleged question paper leak case.

Patil was arrested from Nandurbar by Mumbai Crime Branch's Property Cell. There were seven people arrested in the case, said officials.

Investigators allege that Patil received the leaked question paper before the examination and was told to deliberately answer 10 questions incorrectly to avoid suspicion. Despite the alleged effort to hide the advantage gained from the leaked paper, she eventually secured the seventh rank in the examination.

Patil was produced before a court and remanded to the custody of the Mumbai Crime Branch for further investigation.

Her arrest follows the Mumbai Crime Branch's detention of six other people, including three MPSC officials, for the alleged leak of the Drug Inspector (Group-B) screening examination question paper. The examination was held on March 22 for the recruitment of Drug Inspector posts in Maharashtra's Food and Drug Administration Department.

The other accused include MPSC assistant section officers Vishweshwar Dattatraya Nakate and Gopal Bhattu Marathe, MPSC under secretary Abhijit Ganpatrao Lendwe, Kautilya Academy director Pravin Dilip Patil, and alleged co-conspirators Amrut Namdeo Patil and Lokesh, also known as Gaurav Rajendra Patil.

According to the Mumbai Crime Branch, the accused allegedly obtained questions for the examination before the test and compiled them separately before distributing them to unauthorised individuals.

The screening examination was conducted offline in six divisional headquarters around Maharashtra. Results were announced on June 12 with 506 candidates qualifying for the interview. Out of the 506 candidates, 488 appeared for interviews held between July 1 and July 22.

A provisional merit list was subsequently published which included 488 candidates, including 485 considered eligible for appointment. However, allegations of severe irregularities started to emerge between July 22 and July 26.

Candidates and public representatives alleged that some examinees had received either the complete question paper or questions from it before the examination. The material was also alleged to have been circulated using electronic media.

Following a preliminary inquiry that uncovered a possible breach of the confidentiality of the examination process, the MPSC cancelled the recruitment process and announced that a new examination would be held.

The commission stated that the decision was necessary to protect the fairness, transparency and credibility of the recruitment process and to give equal opportunity to all candidates.

The case has been registered in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Maharashtra Prevention of Malpractices at Competitive Examinations Act and the Prevention of Corruption Act. The accused face allegations of cheating, criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy and corruption involving public servants.

The investigation is continuing with the Mumbai Crime Branch examining how the confidential examination material was allegedly accessed and circulated before the test.

A second-year student of Bharata Mata College in Thrikkakara, Ernakulam was detained by police after accusations that he created and circulated digitally morphed images of fellow students and teachers, resulting in protests and concern surrounding the college campus.

The Thrikkakara police filed a case after the college management filed a formal complaint regarding the alleged circulation of manipulated photographs. The incident reportedly came to the attention of a teacher by a former student.

According to the college principal, Soumya Thomas, the institution's disciplinary committee conducted an internal inquiry into the accusations. Upon reviewing them, the college confirmed that the allegations against the student were accurate and dismissed him. In addition, his mobile phone was handed over to the police for investigation.

The incident sparked protests on campus, with students demanding strict action against those responsible. Some students took part in a sit-in protest outside the college office, raising concerns about whether the images were circulated to a wider audience and whether other students might have been involved.

In addition, some protesters accused the accused student of being allowed to leave the campus with his relatives before the police were notified. The college administration, however, stated that it was cooperating with the police investigation and any further action would be taken based on the findings of the authorities.

In addition, students raised concerns that other content could be present on other devices or be shared via online platforms. The college management said it had not verified claims about the involvement of additional students.

Police have launched a detailed investigation into the alleged creation and circulation of the morphed images. A case has reportedly been registered under provisions relating to insulting the modesty of a woman, publishing or transmitting obscene material electronically and violation of privacy through the circulation of photographs.

Investigators are carrying out a forensic examination of the student's mobile phone and examining the online platforms where the images were allegedly shared. The investigation should find out how the images were created, whether they were shared with others and whether additional people were involved in their distribution.

The incident has once again raised concerns about digital safety and the potential misuse of technology on educational campuses. As morphed and manipulated images become easier to create and circulate, institutions are increasingly being forced to confront questions around student privacy, online harassment and the responsibility of digital platforms.

The police investigation is continuing and further action is expected, based on the forensic findings and evidence collected during the inquiry.

Choosing the right entrance exam is a confusing task for those who are planning to pursue Journalism and Mass Communication after Class 12. There is no single national exam for students to apply to all journalism colleges in India, unlike engineering or medical education. There are various ways to get into different universities and institutions.

For students planning to appear for the 2027 admission cycle, two national-level entrance exams are directly related to media education for undergraduate courses, namely CUET-UG and GMCET. The CUET-UG is organized by the National Testing Agency for admission to undergraduate courses at participating universities, and the GMCET is a national-level entrance test for undergraduate media courses. Students should know the following points before opting for a journalism entrance exam after 12th.

Top National Level Journalism Entrance Exams after 12th

1. CUET-UG

Common University Entrance Test (CUET-UG) is organized by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admission to the undergraduate courses offered by Central Universities and other participating universities in India. This makes CUET-UG one of the most significant national-level entrance pathways for students seeking higher education in the undergraduate level.

CUET-UG is especially significant for students pursuing journalism and mass communication, as Mass Media/Mass Communication is one of the domain subjects in the exam. Mass Media/Mass Communication is included in the domain subjects of CUET-UG 2026 syllabus with code 318.

However, the usefulness of CUET-UG for journalism varies from university to programme. The choice of CUET subjects and eligibility criteria are at the discretion of the participating universities. For instance, the CUET information for the University of Delhi has B.A. (Hons.). Multi-Media and Mass Communication and Five-Year Integrated Programme in Journalism with specific combinations of subjects.

This does not imply that students should just study for CUET and take it for granted that the same combination of subjects will be applicable to all journalism courses. The programme-wise requirements need to be checked before filling the application form.

• Conducting body: National Testing Agency
• Level: Undergraduate
• Mode: Computer-based examination
• Course: Mass Media/Mass Communication
• Subject code: 318
• Use: Admission to participating universities and programmes

Students are advised to wait for the official notification of NTA for the final examination dates, syllabus and programme-wise requirements for 2027.

2. GMCET

The Global Media Common Entrance Test (GMCET) is a national level entrance test, which is specially designed for students who want to get admission in the undergraduate and postgraduate media courses. The official GMCET website states that the exam provides an entry point to programs such as BJMC, BA-JMC, BMC, BMM and BA Journalism (Hons.) and other media-related undergraduate courses along with MJMC & MAJMC.

GMCET is thus of special relevance for students who have already decided that they wish to pursue a career in the media and communication industry after Class 12. The exam evaluates communication skills, analytical thinking and logical reasoning pertinent to media education.

The current GMCET eligibility information mentions that the candidates should have passed out or be appearing in 10+2 or equivalent qualification for undergraduate applicants. The published minimum aggregate is 50% for General category and 45% for SC/ST/OBC candidates. Students are advised to verify the participating institution and individual course requirements prior to applying as requirements may differ.

• Level: Undergraduate
• Eligibility: 10+2 or equivalent
• Eligibility: UG/PG media programmes.
• Content: Communication, Analytical and Logical skills
• Admission: Participating institutions

CUET-UG vs GMCET: What is the best Journalism Entrance Exam?

It depends on the place where you want to study. CUET-UG can be beneficial for students who wish to have universities that are part of the CUET system as their options. The subject combination and eligibility for each programme will be determined by the participating universities and students should refer to the subject combination and eligibility requirements for each programme.

GMCET, however, is a media entrance exam and has undergraduate journalism and mass communication courses and institutions under its umbrella. 

So, rather than asking “Which is the best journalism entrance exam?”, students should ask: “What entrance exam will allow me to get into the journalism courses and universities that I want?” This simple adjustment can stop pupils from being ready for a test which does not result in the programme they want.

What to Study for the Journalism Entrance Exam?

Preparation varies according to the exam selected. Students aiming for entrance into the media should build a solid base in current affairs, general awareness, language and communication skills, logical reasoning and analytical thinking.

It's also a good idea to get into the habit of reading newspapers and reputable news outlets on a regular basis. Journalism is more than writing. Students entering the field must be able to understand events, be able to identify important information, question claims, communicate clearly, and distinguish facts from opinions.

For a media aspirant, therefore, entrance preparation can be more useful if it is not limited to mere memorisation of general knowledge. It is important to know what happened, but it is also important to understand why it happened.

Do you need to take an Entrance Exam for Journalism after 12th?

No. In India, there is no compulsory national entrance test for all journalism and mass communication courses. some universities conduct CUET-UG and some others have their own admission process. GMCET is another national level entrance test for the participating undergraduate media programmes.

That is why it is important for students to first narrow down their choices of journalism or mass communication courses and institutions and then find out what entrance exam or admission process is needed for each.

After Class 12, what Courses Can You Pursue?

Journalism and mass communication students can consider undergraduate courses like:

• BA Journalism
• BA Journalism and Mass Communication
• BJMC
• BA Mass Communication
• BA Mass Media
• BA Media and Communication
• Other special media and communication programs

The title of the course may differ from institution to institution. For instance, GMCET offers BJMC, BA-JMC, BMC, BMM and BA Journalism (Hons.) as its programmes.

For the other programmes related to media, CUET-UG can be used as per the participating university. For instance, the University of Delhi has the latest information on Multi-Media and Mass Communication and a Five-Year Integrated Programme in Journalism. 

Journalism Entrance Exam 2027: What Aspirants Must Remember

The biggest mistake students can make is assuming that one entrance examination works for every journalism college in India. 

For the 2027 admission cycle, students should shortlist their preferred courses first, check which universities offer them, and then identify the required entrance examination. CUET-UG and GMCET are two important national-level routes to explore, but the final admission rules depend on the institution and programme.

Students should also check official notifications before applying because 2027 dates, eligibility requirements and participating institutions may change from the current admission cycle. 

A career in journalism today can extend far beyond newspapers and television. Digital journalism, multimedia storytelling, broadcast media, content production, public relations and other communication fields have expanded the range of opportunities available to media graduates. The first decision, however, remains to choose the course you want, identify the institutions offering it, and then prepare for the entrance exam that actually leads there.

This is easier said than done. Thus, GMCET offers free career consultation for students who seek clarity and need unbiased advice. Connect with the GMCET team @08035018499.

If you have decided to pursue BBA after Class 12, you may be wondering whether you really need to appear for an entrance exam. The answer is not necessarily yes. Some universities and colleges may accept BBA admissions based on Class 12 results of students, while a few institutes conduct entrance tests to shortlist candidates for BBA admission. This means students looking for admission without an entrance exam may have options, but they need to carefully check the admission rules of each college.

What's important here is not to assume that all BBA colleges go through the same process. Some Universities arrange their own entrance tests and some take the scores of the national level tests. Students can also try out the management aptitude test, which offers them admission in various management courses through a single test. Hence, knowing about these various options beforehand can save you from the time and unnecessary confusion while applying for BBA admission 2027.

Can I get into BBA without appearing in the entrance test?

Yes, there are some colleges in India that offer admission to BBA without conducting an entrance exam. In such cases, admission may be given on the basis of the main marks obtained in Class 12 exam and eligibility criteria laid down by the institution. For instance, some universities may take students that have completed Class 12 from a recognised board and attained their required percentage.

However, “without an entrance exam” does not always mean “direct admission without any selection process”. A college can still have an interview, counselling session, document verification or other internal assessment. The rules may also vary from year to year.

That's why, students should not choose a college just because it is on the list of “BBA colleges without entrance exams”. Before paying the application fee, always visit the official admission page of the University and check the eligibility criteria, selection process and the dates for the year 2027.

How to get BBA Admission in 2027?

There are multiple pathways to enter into a BBA programme. The easiest way is merit based admission, based on class 12th marks. This may be helpful for students who have excelled in school but do not wish to study for an outside entrance exam.

The second way is by appearing in the entrance test conducted by the university for BBA or any national-level entrance exam. Some institutions have their own aptitude tests that test their quantitative ability, reasoning, English and general awareness. Others accept a national-level entrance test. For example, CUET-UG may apply to university admission for the undergraduate admissions of the participating universities but students need to consult the admission requirements of the programme and university.

Apart from this, there are some other prominent and hassle-free admission tests. The Global Management Common Aptitude Test (GMCAT) is one such management entrance exam option for undergraduate and postgraduate management programmes. GMCAT is conducted online for 60 minutes and has 100 questions, with no negative marking. It consists of management aptitude, business administration, quantitative and logical reasoning, verbal ability and communication skills and general management awareness. GMCAT official website

Having an entrance-exam pathway and a merit-based pathway can therefore offer more flexibility for students who are looking at multiple management options instead of just one entrance-exam pathway.

Eligibility for BBA After Class 12

Students who have completed Class 12 or an equivalent qualification from a recognised board can apply for BBA in most cases. This varies according to the programme and university. Students can take admission in BBA courses from various academic streams as many BBA courses don't require studies in Commerce.

This is one reason BBA attracts students from Commerce, Science and Arts/Humanities backgrounds. However, each college could have some other requirements, such as a minimum percentage or specific subjects. Therefore, students are advised to read the requirements of the applicant before applying.

Students often have concerns about maths. Some BBA courses may not demand Mathematics in Class 12 while a few institutions or specialization in management could have different subject requirements. Checking the requirements of your target college is better than assuming that Mathematics is compulsory or unnecessary everywhere.. 

What BBA Entrance Exam To Take?

The right BBA exam is based on the colleges you have shortlisted to apply, their requirements for admission and your level of preparation and how many options you'd like to have.

If the college you want to go to has its own entrance exam, it's not a bad idea to study for that particular exam. For participating universities for CUET-UG, one should follow the criteria as per CUET. For those interested in management-related programs in various institutes, there are also other aptitude tests like the GMCAT which can be considered as an alternative.

The benefit of preparing for an aptitude based exam is that the skills gained are transferable to the outside world: logical reasoning, quantitative skills, communicating, business awareness and decision making. These also are necessary skills for students entering into a management education.

Should BBA Without Entrance Exam be Preferred?

Not necessarily. Not taking an entrance exam shouldn't be the sole criterion for picking a BBA college. A college that provides a comprehensive academic program; has faculty with strong experience in the field; has exposure to the industry; has internships; and has student activities and proper career placement opportunities can be more valuable than a college that just gives you admission without taking a test!

Before choosing, students should take into account the course structure, specialisations, costs, campus facilities, support for placements, location and eligibility. Look out for whether the BBA degree is recognised or not and whether the university is properly accredited to run the programme.

If you are still in 12th class, then an alternative way to do it is to apply to various colleges. It is possible to add universities that have merit-based admission, as well as those that demand entry tests. This helps minimize the chances of relying totally on one admission path.

What Should You Do for BBA Admission 2027?

Start by making a list of the BBA colleges you are genuinely interested in. For each one, note whether admission is through merit, CUET-UG, a university-level entrance test, a common management aptitude exam, interview or a combination of these. Then check the official 2027 admission notification when applications open.

If you want to avoid entrance exams completely, focus on colleges that officially offer merit-based admission. But if you are comfortable taking a test, keeping an entrance-exam option such as GMCAT alongside your merit applications can give you another pathway into management education.

Design that communicates has always intrigued you, hasn't it? You like posters, branding, social media visuals, websites, animation or the way a particular advertisement tells a story. You'll spend hours observing colors, fonts, and layouts. However, there is one thing that is stopping you from taking Communication Design after 12th, and that is you can't draw that well.

Students often have this question before selecting a design course. But you don't have to be an expert artist to study Communication Design.

There's a catch to this, though. Drawing may not be a required skill in all Communication Design courses, however, the ability to draw, sketch, observe and visualise may be assessed in some design entry tests. So, the real question is not simply whether you can draw. It is whether you can communicate an idea visually and are willing to improve your basic drawing skills when required.

If you are thinking about pursuing Communication Design after class 12, here's what's important and which entrance exams you can apply for and why AIDAT might be a great choice for students interested in Communication Design and other design fields.

Is Drawing Skill Required for Communication Design?

No, not all Communication Design courses require advanced drawing skills. Communication Design is about using visual and digital forms to communicate an idea, message or experience. Depending on the programme, students can work with graphic design, typography and branding, illustration, photography, motion graphics, animation, digital media, visual storytelling and UI/UX. Studying Communication Design does not mean you are training to become a fine artist or illustrator. However, a designer could be asked to answer questions like:

• What is the best way to convey a brand's character?
• What steps can be taken to make information more understandable?
• What should a poster do to direct the viewers?
• What can make an app interface more user-friendly?
• How to convey an idea in a few seconds through a social campaign?
• What can a visual story do to elicit the appropriate feeling?

You don't need beautiful drawings to solve these problems, you need observation, ideas, visual thinking and problem solving. Indeed, the official syllabus of UCEED divides the drawing and design aptitude. The Design aptitude element involves solving problems/situations in an innovative and empathetic way. This is relevant to students who may have the thought in their head that “I can't draw, I can't be a designer.” 

For Communication Design Entrance Exams Do You Need to Draw?

Sometimes, yes. This is where design aspirants must be cautious. There is no single entrance exam for every Communication Design course in India. Admission requirements vary by university and institute. There may be different admission procedures for each university/institute. You can find a Design Test of your college of interest or an AIDAT, NID DAT, UCEED or an Entrance Test of your institute. These tests are not all based on the same way of assessing students. As a result, AIDAT is a good fit for communication design aspirants.

AIDAT for Communication Design Admission

If students are still in the process of considering their options after Class 12, they can try the All India Design Aptitude Test (AIDAT) as one of the options of entrance. Candidates with 10+2 education from any recognised board can apply for the undergraduate diploma and degree courses. It's listed in the design areas of Communication Design and graphic, fashion, interior, product, UX and other creative disciplines.

It can be useful for a student who is not certain about exactly what his or her design specialisation will be because the process isn't just a drawing test. The existing AIDAT system comprises 100 MCQs based level-1 exams of 60 minutes, a portfolio round later, counselling (college section) and interview phases.

Its syllabus includes design aptitude, 2D/3D visualisation, observation, design principles, creative thinking, logical reasoning, design ability, aesthetic sense, form and function, perspective and visual logic.

If you're more of a thinker when it comes to design and solving visual problems, then AIDAT could be worth a look. It is also crucial to grasp the nature, and non-nature,  of AIDAT. AIDAT is a national level design entry system that provides access to different design courses offered by participating institutions. AIDAT is not accepted by every Communication Design college in India. Students should therefore check whether their preferred college and programme participate in the AIDAT admission pathway before applying.

NID DAT Is Another Major Option

NID's B.Des programme offers Communication Design courses like Graphic Design, Animation Film Design, Film and Video Communication and Exhibition Design at its Ahmedabad campus. Selection is based on his/her performance in the Design Aptitude Test (DAT) in two stages.

NID's B.Des programme includes Communication Design disciplines such as Graphic Design, Animation Film Design, Film and Video Communication and Exhibition Design at its Ahmedabad campus. Admission is based on performance in two stages of the Design Aptitude Test.

NID's 2026–27 B.Des eligibility allowed students from Science, Commerce, Arts, Humanities and other recognised 10+2 streams, subject to the prescribed eligibility and age conditions.

For a student who is weak at drawing, however, NID DAT should not be approached with the assumption that drawing does not matter. The test assesses design-related knowledge, skills and qualities, and preparation should include visualisation and drawing alongside broader design aptitude. 

UCEED Entrance Test If You Are Targeting IIT Design

The admissions for B.des are made based on the scores of UCEED. Institutes like IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Guwahati, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Indore, IIT Roorkee and IIITDM Jabalpur are accepting admission. The scores of UCEED are also accepted by several other institutes through their direct admissions.

The students who are from Science, Commerce and Arts & Humanities could appear for UCEED 2026 provided that they fulfill the eligibility criteria for the exam. However, if you are not good at drawing, you need to be aware of one thing before taking the admission to UCEED: They actually test drawing.

Drawing products, people or scenes with an awareness of proportion, line quality, composition, perspective and shading is a part of the UCEED syllabus. It also assesses design ability and problem solving skills. You need not be an expert artist, but if UCEED is in the list of your targets, you should practise drawing.

NIFT Entrance Test

NIFT is relevant primarily if you are interested in Fashion Communication, rather than assuming it is the standard entrance exam for every Communication Design degree.

NIFT's B.Des programmes include Fashion Communication, alongside areas such as Fashion Design, Accessory Design, Textile Design and others. Its 2026 entrance framework included the General Ability Test and Creative Ability Test for B.Des programmes.

This distinction matters because Communication Design and Fashion Communication overlap in some skills but are not automatically the same course. Always check the exact programme title before preparing for an entrance exam.

AIDAT vs NID DAT vs UCEED for a Student Who Is Bad at Drawing

Instead of asking “Which exam is easiest?”, ask “Which exam matches the type of design education I want?”

The important takeaway is that being weak at drawing should not stop you from applying for design, but it should influence how you prepare.

What If You Cannot Draw Realistically?

You may be able to come up with creative ideas but struggle to draw a realistic face, person or object. This doesn't mean that you are automatically bad at Communication Design. Design entrance preparation is different from preparing for a fine-arts competition. In many designs, a sketch is used to convey an idea, not a finished piece of art. A rough drawing that clearly shows how a person might use an object or how a visual story could unfold can be more useful than a highly detailed drawing that does not communicate the idea.

That's why students who are preparing for an entrance exam for Communication Design after 12th should practice drawing for the purpose of visual communication and not artistic perfection only. For instance, consider an ordinary item like a chair, bottle or school bag and attempt to reimagine it for other users or different situations. Think about how you would make it easier to carry, more suitable for a child or more practical in a small room. The exercise is not about making the sketch pretty. It is about showing how you observe a problem and turn an idea into a visual solution.

It is an important concept for students to grasp that you are not training to be a fine artist, but to be able to express yourself by design.

How Should You Prepare If You Are Bad at Drawing?

If drawing is your weak area, don't spend months simply copying portraits. Your preparation should be a mixture of the basic drawing skills, observation and design thinking. Create with common items and develop to proportion, perspective, the basic figure of the human form, gesture and visual narration.

A helpful practice exercise is:

• Observation: Sketch objects that you see in everyday life, focusing on the shape, size and details.
• Perspective: To understand how objects look different from different perspectives and distances.
• Human figures: Start working on basic poses and gestures rather than getting the in-depth anatomy straight away.
• Visual storytelling: Explain a basic situation using a series of sketches.
• Design thinking: Consider what you would do to make a normal product, poster or sign better.
• Timed practice: Practice questions in an allotted time to learn to communicate an idea quickly.

Another aspect to consider is starting to notice the design you see every day. Pay attention to the packaging, ads, websites, apps, posters and public signs. Why one design attracts you and why another does not. This type of observation can enhance visual thinking skills which are valuable beyond drawing.

Can Commerce and Science students study Communication Design?

Yes, if they are eligible for the specific programme. The Communication Design course is not restricted to Fine Arts students, and does not require them to have taken Fine Arts in classes 11 and 12.

For example, NID's 2026–27 B.The candidates from Science, Arts, Commerce and Humanities were all accepted by Des admission process as per the prescribed eligibility and age criteria. UCEED 2026 also has an option for candidates of Science, Commerce and Arts & Humanities to appear for the examination, but the participating institutes may have their own admission criteria.

After class 12 students may also pursue a course in AIDAT. Its eligibility details show that candidates who have passed out 10+2 from any recognised board are eligible to apply for its design undergraduate program which includes Communication Design and other design courses.

Hence, if you have been in Arts, Commerce or Science, this should not deter you from considering Communication Design as your stream of your School. It's all about the eligibility of the specific course, how you are getting in, and ultimately, if you want to do work with design.

What Actually Makes Someone Good at Communication Design?

It's helpful to be creative, but it's not enough to be creative to be a good designer. Communication Design is largely about making decisions — how an idea should look, what the audience should notice first and how easily they should understand the message

Constantly, a designer will ask himself/herself the following questions:

• Why is one font better than another?
• What makes a specific image looking for a specific position?
• Why is a poster hard to comprehend?
• Why is one package different on a shelf?
• How can a user learn one interface so easily, and not easily the other?
• What is the simplest way to get an idea across in a visual form?

These are questions of design. You can use drawing to explain the answer, but it is as important to explain the thinking that led you to the answer. Good observation, storytelling, problem solving and understanding people skills can lead to effective design skills even if students are not naturally gifted as artists.

After 12th, what Communication Design Entrance Exam Should You Take?

Unlike other courses, there isn't any entrance examination that is mandatory for all Communication Design courses in India. The right exam depends on the college and programme you want to pursue. 

For example:

• NID DAT — relevant if NID is your target.
• UCEED — important for students targeting B.Des admissions through participating IITs and other institutes.
• NIFT Entrance Exam — relevant if you are interested in programmes such as Fashion Communication at NIFT.
• AIDAT — worth exploring if you want a broader design-aptitude route across participating institutions and are considering Communication Design along with other design disciplines.

What must Communication Design Aspirants Know?

You do not need to walk in as a skilled artist. What matters is that you are ready to work on drawing, careful observation, and visual thinking. This is extra important if the entrance test you pick checks these areas.

A better question is this: do you enjoy solving communication tasks using visuals? If you feel interested in how a brand should look, how an app can explain its purpose, how data can be shown in a clearer way, or how a story can be told with images, then your current skill level should not be the only factor.

When you choose an entrance test after 12th grade, start with the program and college you want. Then look at the eligibility rules and how the selection works. After that, pick the test that matches your target.

For many students, AIDAT can be a good option because it focuses on a wider design skill path. NID DAT and UCEED can fit students who already know they want specific institutions.

You might not draw perfectly right now. Still, you can learn how designers think. So, if you are sure you want to pursue this course, give your 100% and build a successful career. Remember the most famous line always: where there is a will, there’s a way.

You choose B.Sc Agriculture after a lot of thinking, breakdowns and arguments, and then you reach another point of confusion – which entrance test to pick.

If you have been searching for the best entrance exam after class 12, AIACAT, All India Agriculture Common Aptitude Test, might keep showing up along with some highly competitive and popular admission tests. You might then ask if it is actually worth your time. Should you apply for AIACAT, or should you check other routes to get admission? You may also wonder whether AIACAT allows you to study at the agriculture college you want.

This decision will not be the same for everyone. AIACAT could suit some students who want admission to undergraduate agriculture and similar programs. Still, it depends on the university and the exact course you want. Before you take a final step, read this article.

What is AIACAT?

AIACAT means All India Agriculture Common Aptitude Test. It is made for students who plan to learn agriculture and related fields at the undergraduate or postgraduate level. AIACAT is an online national-level exam. It looks at topics like agricultural science, biology, environmental science, and logical reasoning.

If you are looking for an agriculture entrance test after 12th, AIACAT could be one option to consider. Still, you should confirm which universities accept AIACAT scores. Also check the exact B.Sc Agriculture programs before you apply.

Is AIACAT required for B.Sc Agriculture admission?

No. AIACAT is not compulsory for all B.Sc Agriculture seats in India. Each university sets its own admission rules, so the requirements can change from place to place.

Some students use CUET (ICAR-UG) for undergraduate agriculture and related courses under the ICAR setup. The 2026 ICAR bulletin lists B.Sc (Hons.) Agriculture as one of the courses covered through CUET (ICAR-UG). In general, eligibility means you complete Class 12 and study at least three relevant subjects. Those subjects are usually from Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology, and Agriculture or Inter-Agriculture. Final eligibility still depends on the university conditions.

So you should not assume that one test works for every college. For B.Sc Agriculture, the accepted entrance exam depends on the university, the specific programme, and the admission path. 

AIACAT vs other B.Sc Agriculture entrance exams

India does not follow one exam pattern for B.Sc Agriculture admissions. Each college links its admission to the test it accepts.

AIACAT is one option that some colleges use for B.Sc Agriculture and similar subjects. Another option is CUET (ICAR-UG). CUET (ICAR-UG) is used for seats in undergraduate agriculture and allied science through the ICAR admission system. ICAR also lists approved agricultural universities and colleges, which can help students when they shortlist schools.

Should you choose AIACAT for B.Sc Agriculture?

You may check AIACAT if your preferred university allows it. You should also confirm that the B.Sc Agriculture course accepts AIACAT scores. For some students, it can work as a backup route after Class 12 when they aim for agriculture admissions.

However, AIACAT should not be assumed as required for every B.Sc Agriculture seat. Read the rules for each target university. Check your eligibility first. Then confirm that the course accepts AIACAT before you apply.

If you want farming and agriculture as a long-term career, the test name should not be the only focus. Do your research about the B.Sc Agriculture programme, look at the syllabus, the practical training, and the value the programme brings for your future goals. If you want, you may connect with the AIACAT team for free career consultation @08071296500  and decide whether B.Sc Agriculture would be the right career for you.

An M.Sc. in Forensic Science with Questioned Documents, Fingerprint and Photography can lead to careers involving scientific evidence, crime-scene examination, forensic laboratory work, research and investigative support. The field is divided into various specialisations such as fingerprint, questioned documents, forensic photography, DNA, toxicology, digital forensics and forensic chemistry.

What is M.Sc. Forensic Science Career Options?

The career prospects after completing M.Sc. Forensic Science with Questioned Documents, Fingerprint and Photography varies based on the specialization, skills acquired, recruitment requirements, and the company hiring. 

Graduates can work in government and private forensic laboratories, investigation related units, research organisations and other areas where scientific evidence is required. Forensic scientist, forensic analyst, crime-scene professional, fingerprint examiner, questioned document examiner, research professional and forensic consultant. Document and fingerprint examination, research and laboratory work are also recognized as potential career paths in current forensic science programs.

The specialisation can offer a pathway for students with a specific interest in fingerprints, questioned documents, and forensic photography to specialise in evidence identification and documentation. Training can involve fingerprint examination, handwriting and signature analysis, document forgery detection and forensic photography. For instance, a special M.Sc. course at Parul University provides hands-on experience in handwriting and signature analysis, fingerprint identification, forensic photography and evidence documentation.

M.Sc. Forensic Science Jobs in India

Government forensic labs are a great career choice but not the only one. Graduates of M.Sc Forensic Science with Questioned Documents, Fingerprint and Photography can be employed in Central Forensic Science Laboratory, State Forensic Science Laboratory, Private Forensic Science Laboratory, Investigation related organisations, Research Institutions and Academic institutions based on the recruitment notification and eligibility criteria. Specific skills may also be applicable to document examination, fingerprint analysis and digital or biometric evidence. Eligibility criteria and job titles vary from organisation to organisation and students should always read the recruitment notification and not assume that an M.Sc. will automatically qualify them for all forensic posts.

The following are popular career options after M.Sc. Forensic Science:

• Forensic Scientist
• Fingerprint Examiner/Analyst
• Questioned Document Examiner
• Crime Scene Investigator
• Forensic Laboratory Professional
• Forensic Analyst
• Research Scientist/Research Scholar
• Forensic Consultant

What is the salary after M.Sc. Forensic Science?

The salary of M.Sc. Forensic Science graduates is not fixed. The pay depends on the job role, employer, location, experience, recruitment level and specialisation. The salary figures for forensic careers are reported differently in current career guides, so students should consider the figures online as indicative, not guaranteed.

The pay structure for government jobs is usually the same as that for the job in question, and pay in the private sector may differ from one employer to another. Candidates should therefore consider a job based on the role, responsibilities, required qualifications and career progression and not just the advertised salary figure.

Is M.Sc. Forensic Science a good career choice?

Forensic science may be a suitable postgraduate career for students with an interest in science, investigation, analysis of evidence and laboratory work. It is especially appropriate for those who would rather investigate rather than study from a theoretical standpoint. Forensic work, however, must be accurate, documented, scientific, and have an understanding of how evidence is handled for investigative and legal purposes.

So students who are interested in the M.Sc. programme should not only consider the name of the programme. Research the specialisation, lab facilities, practical training, internships, dissertation opportunities, and requirements prior to applying. Some institutions have specific criteria for eligibility, for instance, NFSU's M.Sc. Forensic Science currently requires a Bachelor's degree in any science-related field, with marks as specified.

Is Forensic Science with Fingerprint and Document Examination a Good Choice?

Yes, if you are interested in identification evidence and forensic work relating to documents. Fingerprint and questioned-document training can cover areas such as fingerprint comparison, handwriting and signature examination, document alterations and forensic evidence documentation. These are integrated into some programmes with forensic photography and practical laboratory work, providing a more focused knowledge of physical evidence.

How to get admission to M.Sc. Forensic Science?

Forensic science aspirants intending to go for M.Sc. Forensic Science with Questioned Documents, Fingerprint and Photography, they can apply through the admission channel provided by their respective universities. The one is All India Forensic Science Entrance Test (AIFSET) which is a national level entrance test for the Forensic Science programmes of the participating universities. .

Anyone who has completed B.Sc. in Forensic Science or a science graduation from an eligible stream with an aggregate of 50% is eligible for admission in the post-graduate forensic science programmes as per the eligibility criteria of the university. AIFSET 2026 is a 100 MCQs based online test with no negative marking and 60 minutes duration.

If a student has a particular interest in a specialisation like Questioned Documents or Fingerprints and Photography, it is important to find out if the university and specialisation they are interested in is offered by AIFSET prior to applying. Postgraduate forensic science admissions are included in the information provided by AIFSET about participating universities, however, students are advised to check the particular programme, eligibility and admission requirements of the university they wish to attend.

What must aspirants know?

An M.Sc. Forensic Science may lead to a variety of opportunities in forensic laboratories, forensic investigation support, research and forensic specialised evidence examination. A programme with a strong practical emphasis on Questioned Documents, Fingerprints and Photography may be suitable for students who are especially interested in these topics and may provide a good foundation for developing the technical skills that are pertinent to these areas. 

Ensure to not choose the university based on the course name; compare the curriculum, laboratory exposure, eligibility, practical training and career pathways offered by each university before enrolling. For assistance, or free career consultation, connect with AIFSET team on 08035018480.

It is a long woven dream to be a doctor and explore the world. MBBS Study abroad offers both together. But what is the MBBS abroad entrance exam for Indian students? There is no single entrance test accepted by every foreign medical university. For Indian citizens and eligible OCI candidates seeking an undergraduate medical qualification abroad, NEET-UG is a key requirement under the applicable NMC framework, while an additional admission test may be required depending on the country, university and programme. Students should therefore check both the latest NMC requirements and the official admission rules of their chosen university before applying.

Which Entrance Exams Are Required for MBBS Abroad?

The most important point for students searching for MBBS abroad for Indian students is that entrance requirements differ by destination. NEET-UG is relevant to Indian students under the NMC framework, while tests such as UCAT, UCAT ANZ and IMAT apply only to specific universities or medical programmes.

The UCAT is taken into account by UK medical schools that take part, plus some overseas universities. The UCAT Consortium site names certain international institutions for the 2027 entry cycle, including Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore, and Thammasat University.

In Australia and New Zealand, UCAT ANZ is used as an entry requirement at universities that are part of the consortium. It also applies to relevant courses. The official page lists medical options at Monash University, UNSW, the University of Auckland, and the University of Otago.

That said, UCAT ANZ is not needed for every medical route. Some pathways have different rules. So each applicant should read the requirement for the exact course they want.

Is NEET Required for MBBS Abroad?

If you are an Indian student and you plan to study medicine abroad, NEET should be part of your early planning. Under the NMC rules, Indian citizens and eligible OCI holders who want a main medical qualification abroad must follow the NEET rule that applies to them. Check the latest requirements for your category and your admission year. Do not depend on older guidance.

Also, passing NEET does not automatically mean that every foreign school will use NEET for its own entry process. Some universities may run their own academic checks or entrance exams. They may still have extra admission rules beyond what Indian regulations require for you.

What Is the MBBS Abroad Eligibility for Indian Students?

The MBBS abroad eligibility depends on the university and country, but Indian students must pay particular attention to the NMC requirements if they intend to return to India and seek medical registration. The NMC's Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate (FMGL) framework sets requirements for foreign medical education, including the duration of the course, medium of instruction, curriculum, clinical training and internship arrangements.

The NMC's current guidance specifies, among other requirements, a minimum 54 months of education in a single institution, a 12-month internship at the same foreign university, English as the medium of instruction and clinical training that is not split across different countries. Students should verify the latest applicable regulations before choosing a university.

Students planning to practise medicine in India after completing their foreign medical degree should also check the applicable NMC requirements for foreign medical graduates, including the requirements for registration and any licensing examination that may apply. The NMC has advised students to verify course duration, curriculum, clinical training and internship arrangements before taking admission, as non-compliance can affect eligibility for registration in India.

What Is the MBBS Abroad Admission Process?

The MBBS abroad admission process begins with choosing a country and university and checking its current eligibility and entrance requirements. Depending on the destination, students may need an admission test, academic qualifications, language proficiency or an interview. For example, Italy's official Universitaly portal states that admission requirements can vary by programme and may include previous qualifications, grades, an admission test or interview and language requirements. Its official information also identifies Medicine and Surgery as a single-cycle programme and provides information on admission to English-taught medical programmes through IMAT.

After confirming eligibility, students generally need to complete the university application, submit the required documents and follow the institution's admission and enrolment process. International students must also separately meet the applicable visa and immigration requirements of their destination country.

What Should Students Check Before Choosing MBBS Abroad?

Before paying an application or admission fee, Indian students should check:

• NEET-UG requirements applicable to their category and admission year.
• Whether the university requires an additional entrance examination.
• The university's academic and language requirements.
• Whether the medical programme complies with the applicable NMC regulations.
• Course duration, clinical training and internship arrangements.
• Whether the programme is conducted in accordance with the requirements applicable to foreign medical graduates who intend to practise in India.

The NMC has specifically warned Indian students about foreign medical institutions that do not comply with its prescribed requirements and advised them to conduct due diligence before admission.

What Must MBBS Study Abroad Aspirants Know

If you are seeking to take one entrance exam only to be eligible for most MBBS universities, there is no such single MBBS abroad entrance exam for all international medical universities. For Indian students, NEET-UG is a crucial regulatory requirement, while additional examinations such as UCAT, UCAT ANZ or IMAT may apply depending on the destination and university. The safest approach is to check the latest NMC rules alongside the official admission requirements of the specific medical university before making a decision.

A student can spend an entire day studying and still have very little time to think. School in the morning, coaching in the evening, homework at night, a test tomorrow and an assignment due next week. From the outside, it looks like commitment. From the student’s side, it can feel like moving from one deadline to another. Somewhere along the way, education has acquired a strange equation: a busy student must be a serious student. But what if being constantly occupied is sometimes getting in the way of actually learning?

It is normal to feel stuck here. Learning takes work, and adults can easily notice the work part. An assignment gets finished. A sheet gets counted. Study time can be written down. Test results can be lined up and compared. What is harder to spot is real understanding. Did the student dig in, ask questions, link the topic to something else, or start using the idea on their own?

Because of this, some students get skilled at “showing effort”. They hand in proof that they did the steps. Yet they may not have had enough time to reach what learning needs. They are busy, but the deeper part can still be missing.

This is not really about homework, coaching, or clubs. Those things can help. Practice can firm up a concept. Coaching can offer extra help when school gets unclear. Activities beyond class can grow confidence, routine, and new interests. The trouble starts when doing tasks is treated as the same thing as progress. A student wraps up one job and jumps right to the next. Then another. Before long, the packed day starts to feel like success. 

But more completed work does not always mean more understanding. One student might spend an hour wrestling with a tough idea and learn more from that struggle than another student who spends four hours running through tasks. The second student may keep going without pausing to ask if any of it actually fits.

There is a psychological reason this culture is so difficult to escape. Students quickly notice what adults reward. If being constantly occupied is treated as ambition, they begin to associate exhaustion with achievement. If the first question after school is, “How much did you study today?” rather than, “What did you understand today?”, the number of hours gradually becomes more important than the quality of those hours. And when every free afternoon is filled with another class, course, test or competition, having nothing scheduled can begin to feel like falling behind. A child can slowly learn to measure progress by how tired they are.

Some pressure can change how students feel about what they like. A hobby may turn into a box to tick. A contest can turn into a mark that sits on a page. Even reading can start to feel like a task with a result at the end. Curiosity itself can get shaped by the need to perform. Students may pick things because they believe it will help with getting in or make them seem more capable. From the outside, it may look like a student is highly driven. But at times, they are just good at hitting what others want.

This matters because some of the most important parts of learning do not look productive. Understanding a difficult concept can require sitting with confusion. Solving a problem may involve getting it wrong several times. Creativity often begins when there is no immediate instruction about what to do next. A student may spend an afternoon reading about something outside the syllabus, exploring an unusual question or attempting a project that fails completely. None of these experiences necessarily produces a certificate, a completed worksheet or a higher test score. Yet they can develop something far more valuable: the ability to think independently.

Not every empty hour is wasted time. Some of it is where thinking begins.

Schools and parents need to recognise one important difference: keeping children busy is not the same as helping them think and learn. A classroom can be full of activity without students engaging deeply with an idea. A timetable can be perfectly organised without leaving enough space for curiosity, questions or independent thought.

For parents, this is tough because they feel real pressure. Places like good schools, good colleges, and strong jobs matter a lot. Many families want their children to be ready. When a new coaching class is added, it can feel like extra safety. Another test can feel like more help. Yet a free afternoon can seem like time lost. Still, there is a line. After that line, “more prep” may not add much. A new worksheet does not always mean deeper understanding. Another test does not always build a new skill.

Children need preparation for the future, but they also need enough space to become the people who will live that future.

The same question applies to schools. If students spend most of their time completing prescribed tasks, when do they learn to decide what is worth exploring? If every problem comes with a method, when do they learn to find their own? If every mistake is corrected immediately, when do they learn to sit with uncertainty and work their way through it? The world outside school will not always provide a syllabus, four answer choices or a teacher explaining what comes next. Students will eventually face problems that have never appeared in a textbook.

That is why education should not simply ask how much work a student has completed. It should ask what that work has changed… Did the student understand something today that they did not understand yesterday? Did they learn to solve a problem without being shown the method? Did they discover a question they had never thought about before? Did they make a mistake and understand why it happened? These are harder things to measure, but they are much closer to the meaning of learning.

The goal should not be to push students less. It should not be to take away all structure. Discipline still matters, practice still matters, getting ready still matters.  But learning is what outweighs it all.

Yet a packed timetable should not decide who is a good student. When schools chase productivity more and more, we should pause. Kids are not tools that improve by the count of tasks finished. They are learners. Learning can take time. Some of that time does not fit into a scoreboard.

Perhaps the better question at the end of a school day is not, “How much did you finish?” It is “What can you understand now that you could not understand before?”

If the answer is something meaningful, the day was productive, even if the notebook is not full, the calendar has a gap and nothing was added to a résumé. Because the purpose of education was never to create the busiest students in the room; it was to give them enough knowledge, confidence and curiosity to think when nobody is telling them what to do next.

India can land a spacecraft on the Moon and still mistake freezer ice for a divine visitation. The next science mission is not only to communicate achievements, but to build citizens who can question, verify and use technology without surrendering judgment.

A freezer, a foot bath, and a warning

In July 2026, an ordinary household refrigerator in Agra became an extraordinary destination. An ice formation inside the freezer took on a shape that some residents read as a Shivling. News spread, people arrived, flowers and belpatra were offered, water was poured in jalabhishek, and devotional chants filled a private home. The reports also recorded the obvious alternative explanation: freezing conditions had produced a naturally formed shape. No religious authority had authenticated it. No laboratory was needed to see the basic fact. Ice can take suggestive forms.

The episode would be comic if it ended as a neighbourhood curiosity. It becomes revealing when a resemblance is promoted into a revelation before anyone asks the simplest question: what else could explain this?

That question has become increasingly important in a country where faith, technology and digital misinformation now intersect in powerful ways. Recent incidents offer uncomfortable reminders. In Pune, videos surfaced showing women followers of self-styled godman Radhamohan Mishra washing his feet and drinking milk poured over them, amid a police investigation into allegations of exploitation and psychological manipulation at an ashram. In late 2024, visitors at Vrindavan's Banke Bihari temple were filmed drinking water dripping from an elephant-shaped outlet as charan amrit. Reports later identified it as air-conditioning discharge, yet some continued despite warnings.

These are not interchangeable incidents. A freezer is not an ashram, reverence is not coercion, and a viral video is not a completed investigation. But together they raise a larger question: why does a society that celebrates scientific achievement sometimes suspend ordinary standards of evidence when a claim is wrapped in sanctity, charisma or collective excitement?

The answer cannot simply be that Indians are irrational or that religion is the enemy. That conclusion is both simplistic and unhelpful. The harder truth is that India has become remarkably effective at communicating science when there is a mission, a government programme, a public benefit or a spectacular event. It has been less successful at developing the everyday civic habit of asking: How do we know? What do we not know? Who is accountable? And what happens if the claim is wrong?

In an era of deepfakes, generative AI, miracle cures, climate stress and mass digital persuasion, this is no longer merely a cultural concern. It is a public-safety issue.

Faith is not on trial. Unaccountable certainty is.

Article 51A(h) of the Constitution calls upon citizens to develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform. Scientific temper does not require anyone to abandon prayer, ritual or imagination. It requires claims about health, safety, nature, public policy and human rights to remain open to evidence and correction.

A person can find meaning in a sacred symbol and still know that frost is frost. A family can respect a guru while refusing an unsafe medical treatment. The real dividing line is not between the religious and the secular. It is between meaning and manipulation, private devotion and public harm, humility before mystery and unquestioning obedience to someone claiming immunity from scrutiny.

The hierarchy normalised by some godman practices is particularly disturbing. When a leader's body is presented as a source of healing or supernatural authority, followers can gradually surrender dignity, bodily autonomy and medical judgment. Maharashtra reported cases in 2025 involving a self-styled godman accused of violent and degrading practices in the name of exorcism. In Damoh, an OBC man was allegedly forced to wash a Brahmin man's feet and drink the water as atonement after an AI-generated image triggered a caste dispute; the Madhya Pradesh High Court took suo motu cognisance.

The stakes can become catastrophic. The 2024 Hathras stampede killed 121 people at a gathering associated with Bhole Baba, where the crowd vastly exceeded the permitted number. Such tragedies cannot be explained simply through ridicule of believers. Illness, insecurity, deprivation, discrimination, loneliness and the need for hope can all make charismatic figures attractive.

A humanist response therefore has to ask different questions: Who profits from vulnerability? Where are safe alternatives? Why are public institutions absent when desperation arrives?

India already knows how to make science visible

India has a rich science-communication inheritance. CSIR's popular-science initiatives, Vigyan Pragati, science museums, radio, mobile exhibitions, NCSTC, university outreach, community radio and people's science movements have repeatedly attempted to take knowledge beyond laboratories and examination halls.

Public-health campaigns offer another important lesson. Smallpox eradication, polio elimination, HIV/AIDS communication, immunisation drives and COVID-19 messaging demonstrated that communication works best when it is accompanied by delivery, trust, repetition and local engagement.

Polio did not succeed because of a single poster. It depended on house-to-house mobilisation, vaccine booths, surveillance, health workers, local leaders, repeated rounds and responses to rumours. People trusted the message partly because the service was physically present and there was someone nearby to answer questions.

India's space programme has made science equally visible. Aryabhata, Chandrayaan-1, the Mars Orbiter Mission, Chandrayaan-2, Chandrayaan-3, Aditya-L1 and XPoSat have transformed engineering and research into subjects of popular fascination. Chandrayaan-2 offered a public lesson in failure and iteration; Chandrayaan-3 demonstrated how software, materials, navigation, testing and teamwork can turn a difficult attempt into a successful landing.

Digital India demonstrates another form of technological adoption. UPI, DigiLocker, online public services and digital public infrastructure show that Indians can adopt complex technologies at enormous scale when those technologies are useful, supported and embedded in everyday life.

Yet admiration for science is not the same as scientific temper.

A person can admire a rocket, scan a QR code and use an AI assistant while still struggling to evaluate a health claim, interpret a graph, identify a manipulated video or question an automated decision.

The next challenge is therefore to turn admiration into reasoning.

The SWOT verdict: powerful, partial and precarious

India's greatest strength is its distributed scientific and educational infrastructure. DST-NCSTC, CSIR-NIScPR, NCSM, ISRO, ICMR, DBT, ICAR, universities, IISERs, museums and civil-society networks possess expertise, channels and institutional legitimacy. Science clubs, street theatre, demonstrations, jathas and local-language campaigns add a participatory tradition that cannot be created by central publicity alone.

The weakness lies in what gets celebrated. Public communication often focuses on what an institution has announced, launched or achieved. Achievement is important, but it can crowd out method, uncertainty, failure, independent verification, social costs and affected communities.

A rocket launch is visible. Calibration, data analysis and the labour behind it are not. A medical breakthrough makes a compelling headline. Sample size, adverse effects, cost, comparators and limitations are harder to explain.

This is where technology communication and science communication must be separated.

Technology communication teaches use. Science communication teaches judgment.

The gap is compounded by language inequality, rote learning, fragmented media coverage and weak professional pathways. The 2024 FAST India SciComm ThinkLabs report, based on a small, non-representative practitioner sample, found that 54 per cent of respondents had no formal training, while about 95 per cent used English in their current work.

India does not lack enthusiasm. It lacks continuity, translation, evaluation and safety.

The closure of Vigyan Prasar, completed in October 2024 following a Union Cabinet winding-up decision, makes the institutional question sharper. The lesson should not be to romanticise one organisation or create another official voice. It is that archives, networks, professional memory and public-interest communication can disappear unless they are deliberately protected.

Build scientific citizenship, not just science fans

India now has an opportunity to make scientific thinking a design requirement of public life.

Every major research or technology initiative should have two outcomes: the immediate service or achievement, and a lasting increase in the public's ability to question, verify, use safely and participate.

A Scientific Citizenship Charter for ministries, regulators, universities, schools, hospitals and publicly funded projects could require plain-language evidence, methods wherever possible, uncertainty, conflicts of interest, risks, consequences, public question logs and visible correction mechanisms.

Transparency should be treated as part of scientific excellence, not as an attack on institutional prestige.

The effort must also be local. Evidence translated into Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Hindi, Assamese or tribal languages is useful, but translation alone is insufficient. Communities need explanations in their own idiom, demonstrations, trusted facilitators and opportunities to respond.

Scientific citizenship grows when people investigate problems they can see: water quality, classroom heat, crop health, waste, disease, air pollution or biodiversity—and then watch institutions respond.

Make the classroom a laboratory for doubt

Scientific temper will not be created by slogans, National Science Day speeches or one-off AI-awareness programmes. It has to be practised until questioning becomes ordinary.

History can teach source criticism. Civics can examine evidence in public decisions. Geography can involve local mapping. Mathematics can teach estimation and uncertainty. Biology can address health, ecology and misinformation. Languages can teach argument and revision. Computer science can explore data, models, bias and human oversight.

The goal is not to make children recite the scientific method. It is to make them comfortable designing a fair test, explaining an anomaly, comparing sources and changing an answer when evidence demands it.

Teachers are central to this effort. They need continuing professional development, experiment kits, local datasets, libraries, mentors and the freedom to spend time on questions.

Assessment must also change. A polished AI-generated answer should not automatically score higher than a modest answer that shows where the student checked, doubted and reached a conclusion.

Projects can begin with local questions: Does shade reduce classroom heat? What is the quality of neighbourhood water? How does a vaccination rumour spread? What happens to a discarded phone?

Students can observe, measure, interview, test, analyse, present and revise. They learn that evidence is not an external authority. It is a shared practice.

Put the human being back in the AI loop

AI literacy must go beyond prompt-writing. Citizens need to understand when AI should be used, when it should not be used and who remains responsible after the system produces an answer.

A practical human-in-the-loop routine should be taught from school to the workplace: frame the question; check data and permissions; protect privacy; use AI for a bounded task; record the output; verify it against trusted sources; identify what the system could not establish; accept, revise, reject or escalate the result; disclose AI assistance; and identify the uncertainty or condition under which AI should not be used.

The principle applies everywhere.

In a newsroom, AI can transcribe while a journalist verifies. In government, a model can draft while a human preserves the record and answers an appeal. In medicine, education, law and welfare, people affected by automated decisions must have a way to understand the basis, correct an error and seek review.

Human-in-the-loop cannot mean a ceremonial human click after the machine has already decided. It means responsibility before, during and after the system acts.

The newest godman may not always appear on a stage. Sometimes he—or the illusion of omniscience—may arrive through a chat window.

Build a public-reasoning grid, not a propaganda machine

India needs a long-term National Mission for Scientific Temper and Public Reasoning, supported by an independent observatory. Its purpose should be coordination and capacity-building, not narrative control.

Such a mission could map existing assets, identify language and access gaps, fund independent evaluations, monitor misinformation, preserve scientific archives and publish an annual assessment of reasoning, trust, safety and equity.

The architecture should be federated. NCSTC can provide a backbone; NIScPR can strengthen research communication; NCSM can support hands-on learning. Universities, IISERs, state councils, community radio, civil-society organisations, journalists and creators can provide local capacity.

The media must also invest. A public-interest fund with editorial firewalls could support science, health, climate and technology journalism in regional languages. Newsrooms need access to primary papers and data, specialist training, expert networks, visible corrections and sufficient time for follow-up reporting.

A high-quality science story should answer six questions: What is the claim? What is the evidence? What remains uncertain? What are the limits? Who is affected? Where can people verify the information or seek help?

Climate and nature should run through this work. A heatwave story should include exposure, housing, work, cooling and health services. A river story should examine ecology, livelihoods, pollution, infrastructure and governance. An AI story should address data, labour, energy, water, privacy and recourse.

The question is no longer simply, “Does this technology work?” It must also be, “For whom, for how long, at what cost, and what happens after disposal?”

Protect those who ask inconvenient questions

Scientific temper cannot be a public duty if those who defend it are left vulnerable.

Narendra Dabholkar was murdered in Pune in 2013 after campaigning against exploitative superstition and black magic. A 2024 special-court conviction brought some accountability, but the larger lesson remains institutional: rationalist work requires protection, not applause after tragedy.

Anti-superstition efforts should bring together rationalist organisations, teachers, doctors, journalists, fact-checkers, psychologists, lawyers, police, public-health officials and community leaders. The response to harmful claims should identify the harm, explain the evidence, provide safer alternatives, connect vulnerable people to services and protect those willing to speak.

At the same time, the state must guard against another danger: a national scientific-temper mission becoming a censorship mechanism or AI monitoring becoming surveillance.

Pluralism, dissent, privacy, due process and independent evaluation are not obstacles to scientific temper. They are its conditions.

Stop counting applause. Measure agency.

India's communication system often counts events, impressions, clicks, downloads and views. These numbers have value, but they do not tell us whether citizens have become more capable.

A campaign with a million views and little change in understanding should not automatically outrank a local programme involving 5,000 people who can identify a rumour, demonstrate a method or demand a correction.

A National Scientific Temper and Public Reasoning Index could measure comprehension of evidence and uncertainty, source-checking, willingness to revise beliefs, calibrated trust, safe AI use and civic agency. It should also assess whether institutions answer questions, publish corrections and include affected communities.

Results should be examined across language, geography, gender, caste, disability, age, education and income. A national average can hide a thousand exclusions.

Progress is not louder applause for science. It is the ability to disagree without violence, reject a fraudulent cure, recognise a deepfake, ask a public office for evidence, appeal an automated decision, protect dignity and make choices within ecological limits.

The Agra freezer did not reveal a divine crisis. It revealed a civic one: how quickly resemblance can become certainty when a crowd, a camera and sacred vocabulary meet.

The answer should not be ridicule. India needs stronger institutions, better journalism, classrooms that reward questioning, public-health systems people can trust, local networks that can counter misinformation and a more honest relationship with uncertainty.

India has already demonstrated that it can communicate a polio campaign, a digital service and a lunar landing to millions. The next task is harder: communicating the method and the limits.

A rocket landing can give a nation a shared moment of wonder. Scientific citizenship can give it a shared capacity to decide.

That capacity must become ordinary—in the classroom, clinic, newsroom, village meeting, public office, family WhatsApp group and AI tab open at midnight.

The future of science communication in India will be determined not only by how brilliantly the country explains what it can build, but by whether its citizens can ask what is true, what is uncertain, who bears the risk and what must change.

In an age of blind faith and intelligent machines, that is not merely science communication. It is the infrastructure of freedom.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming education, but it is also forcing schools and universities to confront an uncomfortable question: what happens when the quality of a student’s output becomes better than the student’s actual understanding?

A learner today can produce a polished essay, solve a mathematical problem, write computer code or prepare an impressive presentation with AI assistance—sometimes before developing the reasoning that such work appears to demonstrate. The danger, therefore, is not simply cheating. It is something deeper: the artefact may outrun the learner.

The answer is neither to ban artificial intelligence nor to surrender education to it. The challenge is to build a human-led learning system in which AI expands access and capability while teachers and learners retain judgement, verification, responsibility and ownership. As Prof Ujjwal K. Chowdhury argues, the goal should not be less AI, but more learner.

AI undoubtedly has a place in education. It can translate difficult concepts, generate additional examples, provide practice questions, simulate debates and offer feedback without embarrassment or fatigue. For students struggling with language, accessibility or access to personalised support, these possibilities can be transformative. But convenience must not become substitution. When AI performs the thinking before the learner has made a genuine attempt, it can remove the productive struggle through which understanding is built.

Education needs friction. Students must still retrieve information, make predictions, attempt solutions, make mistakes, test assumptions and explain their reasoning. A correct answer is not necessarily evidence of learning. The real test is whether the learner can explain, defend and transfer an idea when the screen goes dark.

This is where the idea of the “human-in-the-loop” becomes crucial. Human involvement cannot mean a teacher merely approving an AI-generated final submission. The learner must remain involved before, during and after AI use. A simple principle can guide classrooms: human first, AI in the middle, human last.

The learner should begin by thinking independently—forming a question, making an attempt or outlining an idea. AI can then assist with hints, counterarguments, examples or feedback. But the final responsibility must return to the learner, who verifies the information, revises the work, explains the reasoning and demonstrates genuine understanding.

This approach also demands a rethinking of assessment. Educational institutions cannot spend the next decade endlessly trying to detect whether AI has touched an assignment. The more important question is: what evidence shows what a learner can actually do? Process logs, oral defences, practical demonstrations, live problem-solving and short micro-vivas may become more valuable than polished take-home submissions alone.

Teachers, too, must be recognised as more important—not less important—in the AI era. Their role is evolving from information providers to learning architects. AI may help automate repetitive work, but teachers remain uniquely capable of identifying misconceptions, understanding context, building confidence and deciding when a student needs challenge rather than another answer.

For India, the opportunity is significant. The principles of inquiry, experiential learning, problem-solving and competency-based education already align with the need for responsible AI integration. But technology must not deepen inequality. A sustainable AI-enabled education system must ensure that learning does not depend on expensive subscriptions, high-speed internet or perfect English.

The final measure of educational technology is simple. After AI has helped, can the learner still think independently, explain clearly, solve a new problem and act responsibly?

If the answer is yes, AI is strengthening education. If the answer is no, then the system may have produced better assignments while producing weaker learners.

The future of education should not belong to the machine that speaks the most fluently. It should belong to the learner who, with or without AI, still knows how to think.

India's student protests have entered a new phase. What began as anger over the cancellation of NEET-UG 2026 has expanded into a broader youth movement questioning examination systems, recruitment processes, policing and the everyday failures of public education. From Jantar Mantar to Jharkhand, Bihar and the school gate, young citizens are increasingly learning to turn protest into institutional pressure.

The Supreme Court's September 1 order has provided an important legal pause. Invoking Article 142, the Court directed that FIRs registered across India in connection with protest incidents between July 20 and 25 should be closed and barred fresh FIRs concerning those incidents. The relief is not a blanket declaration of innocence: the Court permitted the Centre and Delhi Police to register a fresh FIR concerning 2,873 people identified as having serious criminal antecedents, limited to allegations involving bodily harm or destruction of public or private property. The Court also made clear that the order was based on the peculiar circumstances of the case and would not constitute a precedent.

The Court's intervention also addressed one of the most painful dimensions of the NEET crisis. It recorded the Centre's commitment to formulate a pan-India compensation policy for families of students who died by suicide following the cancellation of NEET-UG 2026. The distinction matters. The Court did not award ₹1 crore to every family; that was a demand raised by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). The government's commitment is to formulate a compensation framework, in consultation with the states and Union Territories, within the stipulated three-month period. The real test will be whether that promise becomes an accessible, transparent and accountable mechanism.

CJP subsequently withdrew its proposed September 5 march from India Gate to New Delhi Police Headquarters. The withdrawal should not be read as the disappearance of the movement. It is better understood as a conditional pause. The protesters have received an institutional response; the state has gained time to demonstrate that its assurances can become policy. Trust will depend not on the announcement but on implementation.

The roots of the agitation lie in the disruption of NEET-UG 2026. More than 22 lakh candidates appeared for the May 3 examination, which the National Testing Agency cancelled on May 12 after concerns raised through law-enforcement inputs. A re-examination was subsequently held on June 21. For students who had spent years preparing through coaching, mock tests and family sacrifice, the cancellation was more than an administrative inconvenience. It disrupted their expectation that a stable process would translate effort into opportunity. The controversy therefore became a question of institutional credibility: if the rules governing merit can collapse, how much trust can students place in the system?

That anxiety found its most visible expression at Jantar Mantar. The July 20 attempt to move towards Parliament escalated the confrontation between protesters and police, with competing claims over the use of force and allegations of violence and property damage. The Supreme Court's later intervention is significant precisely because it separates participation in a protest from individual criminal responsibility. An FIR is not a conviction, but a prolonged criminal case can nevertheless affect a young person's education, employment and future prospects. Protecting peaceful dissent while retaining accountability for genuine violence is therefore not a contradiction; it is the difficult balance democracy requires.

The movement has also spread beyond Delhi. AISA's Gen Z Rising campaign, launched in Ranchi on August 7, has taken the debate across several cities, expanding the agenda from examination irregularities to the abolition of the National Testing Agency, opposition to the National Education Policy, affordable education and employment. This widening is politically significant. A movement that begins with a question paper can quickly become a debate about who gets access to education, who bears the cost of failure and whether degrees still provide a credible route to employment. Political parties may amplify these concerns, but student movements must retain the freedom to disagree with the parties that seek to speak for them.

Jharkhand demonstrates both the power and complexity of student mobilisation. Protests over alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations prompted the state government on August 19 to announce the cancellation of 44 recruitment examinations and processes involving bodies including JPSC, JSSC and TDPL, alongside measures aimed at strengthening recruitment and investigation mechanisms. Yet cancellation is not synonymous with justice. Thousands of legitimate candidates can also suffer when an examination is scrapped. The challenge is to identify wrongdoing without punishing those who played by the rules—a task that ultimately requires evidence, individual accountability and due process.

Bihar offers another version of the same story. Teacher aspirants protesting over the fourth Teacher Recruitment Examination secured the government's decision to conduct TRE-4 as a single-stage examination. The agitation was subsequently withdrawn. But a government promise is only the beginning. The real measure of success will be whether the decision is implemented transparently and whether wider complaints about recruitment examinations are addressed within clear, publicly verifiable timelines.

The appearance of a six-year-old boy at the Bihar protest site added an uncomfortable dimension to the politics of dissent. Children have a right to be heard, but they should never become political shields or be exposed unnecessarily to adult confrontation. Allegations of police excess must be investigated fairly, while parents and organisers also carry a responsibility to safeguard children. A democracy that listens to children must not ask them to carry adult political battles.

The youth movement is now reaching an even more fundamental level—the school gate. CJP's School Thik Karo campaign, launched on August 15 in Maharashtra, seeks to document basic deficiencies in government schools, including drinking water, toilets, electricity, seating and midday meals. This changes the nature of protest. A paper leak can be difficult for an ordinary citizen to verify; a broken toilet, missing teacher or classroom without adequate facilities can be documented. The political value of such a campaign will depend on whether complaints are converted into evidence, responsibility and deadlines for repair.

Across these movements, a new vocabulary is emerging. Young protesters are no longer asking only, "Why has this happened?" They are asking: Who made the decision? Who is responsible? What evidence exists? When will it be corrected? What is the appeal process? What is the deadline? The language of protest is acquiring procedural words—FIR, committee, retest, eligibility, compensation, evidence, appeal and accountability.

This may be the most important transformation of all. Youth dissent is moving from grievance towards agency. A crowd can attract attention, but institutions change only when demands are translated into rules, records and measurable outcomes. Protest can force a government to listen; democratic accountability begins when that listening produces a document, a deadline and a result.

The Constitution protects freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, subject to reasonable restrictions. But the right to protest is not immunity from accountability, just as the state's responsibility to maintain order is not a licence for disproportionate force. Protesters must reject violence and protect vulnerable participants; police must distinguish peaceful assembly from criminal conduct; courts must protect dissent while allowing genuine allegations of violence to be tested through due process.

The Supreme Court's September 1 order embodies that difficult balance. It provides event-specific relief to protesters while preserving a narrow route for investigating serious allegations. It records a compensation commitment without fixing an arbitrary amount. Most importantly, it moves the immediate dispute from confrontation towards implementation.

That is where the next chapter will be written. The Centre's compensation framework, the implementation of the Supreme Court's FIR directions, Jharkhand's recruitment reforms, Bihar's examination commitments and school-level audits will reveal whether this season of protest produces lasting institutional change or merely another cycle of headlines.

The September 5 march may have been withdrawn, but the movement has not disappeared. The street has simply handed the argument to courtrooms, government files, examination calendars and school registers. The strongest youth movements are not those that never shout; they are those that learn to turn a shout into a demand, a demand into evidence, evidence into a hearing and a hearing into a rule that can be checked.

India's young citizens are learning that democracy is not merely the freedom to object. It is the harder task of making institutions answer. The Supreme Court has provided a legal pause. The government has made commitments. The protesters have stepped back.

Now comes the real test: delivery.

Because trust in a republic is not created when an assurance is made. It is created when that assurance survives the file, the deadline, the examination hall and the public record. The republic has begun to listen. Whether it has truly learned to listen will depend on what happens next.

Before power could command the world, knowledge had already begun to shape it; education became the vessel through which that knowledge travelled from one generation to another. Education is often presented as the road to a better career, a higher income and a secure future. Its most remarkable strength, however, lies far beyond employment. Education changes how people understand the world. It gives them the ability to read laws, understand history, question information, recognise manipulation and demand accountability. Hence, the idea of education as power has remained relevant across generations.

A person with knowledge is not necessarily powerful. However, an individual who knows how to think, question and apply knowledge can be much more difficult to control. This is where education goes beyond a degree or certificate. It turns into a way of freedom, and allows people to make choices instead of taking things on faith. This is why unaccountable power fears an educated population because education gives people the tools to question authority.

How can education be a source of power?

Knowledge alters the options that are available to a person. When a child learns to read, he or she can gain access to ideas that are beyond the immediate context. A student with an understanding of technology can find opportunities that other generations may not have found. A citizen who knows his/her rights will know when they are being violated. This is what education does to a society — makes it powerful.

Education also provides people with the capacity to analyze information rather than taking everything they read at face value. A learned individual can ask: What is the evidence? Who is making this argument? What is not stated? What are the advantages of this decision? These questions might seem straightforward, but they are the building blocks of thinking and responsible citizenship.

Why is it that the powerful do not like an educated society?

It would be unkind to claim that all rulers and governments are afraid of educated people. Institutions must be strong and accountable, and they should be open to an informed population, as they can be made more transparent and effective through scrutiny. What is it that the power which is insecure and unaccountable fears? Education itself? No, it is people who know and are confident enough to question it.

An educated population is harder to control with misinformation, fear or empty promises. People who understand history are better equipped to recognise patterns that have appeared before. Those who know the law have the right to challenge decisions that are made without justification. Individuals who are able to assess evidence are less likely to believe a claim just because it is made by an authority figure. Education does not teach people to rebel against authority, it teaches them how to comprehend and assess authority.

The best lesson is to ask why

The best classroom is not the one that teaches students the most. It is the one in which students learn to ask better questions. Why is this true? What is the evidence for it? Is there another reason? What if this decision is incorrect?

These questions lie at the heart of science, journalism, law and democracy. The advancement of science requires challenging accepted theories. Journalism requires tough questions. Examination of evidence is the basis of law. Citizens need to evaluate conflicting claims in order to ensure democracy. A student who learns to question respectfully is not being disobedient, they are learning one of the most important skills that education can give them: critical thinking.

Education is a key component of a healthy democracy

Democracy requires more than just voters. It requires informed citizens who can comprehend information, identify misinformation and make informed decisions. This is especially significant in the context of today's world where information can spread around the globe in seconds.

Fake news can be spread through social media, and AI can create convincing text, images and videos. In this context, it is not enough to have access to information. Students should be taught to check sources, identify bias, to distinguish between fact and opinion, and to assess evidence. Education is thus emerging as one of the best lines of defence against misinformation.

Education does not necessarily equal a degree

In modern society, education is often judged by marks, degrees, rankings and placements. While these accomplishments are important, especially in a competitive job market, they don't necessarily tell the whole story. A student can get very good grades without being confident enough to challenge an idea. A graduate can enter a prestigious profession and still remain vulnerable to misinformation. A person may be technically very knowledgeable but not be aware of the ethical implications.

The success of education should therefore not be judged by what a student remembers. It should also be judged on their ability to comprehend, ask questions, analyse and create. Knowledge is truly empowering when it transforms the way that a person views the world and equips them with the power to make informed decisions.

Can education become a tool of control?

The connection between education and power is complex, as education can free people, but it can also shape their beliefs. What students learn is important, but what they don't learn can be important. A classroom may challenge youth to think differently or may give them one interpretation of an issue.

This is why it is important to foster curiosity and intellectual freedom in education. When students are taught only what to believe, education runs the risk of becoming conditioning. When they learn to evaluate ideas, to compare evidence and to draw their own conclusions, education becomes a liberating force. Education is not about teaching students to think for you, it's about teaching students how to think for themselves.

Why universities must protect the freedom to disagree

A good university is not a place where everyone agrees with each other. It should be a place where ideas are challenged by evidence, reasoning and respectful debate. Students should be able to ask questions of their teachers, researchers should be able to challenge accepted ideas, and alternative perspectives should be explored and not simply rejected.

It is not a failure of education when there is disagreement. At times, it's proof that learning is taking place. The seeds of intellectual development can be sown when a person is confronted with an idea that contradicts his or her own beliefs. The aim of higher education should not be to get all students to the same conclusion, but to enable students to make conclusions based on reasoning and evidence.

Education empowers people to change their future

The most intimate form of educational power is the capacity to envision an alternative future. A child from a disadvantaged background can find opportunities that might not have been apparent to them that he or she could discover through education. It can provide communities with knowledge and skills that generate economic and social opportunities. It can also assist people to realize that their current situation does not have to be their future.

Education doesn't just affect one student. Knowledge is transferred from students to families, from families to communities and from one generation to the next. A teacher can impact hundreds of young minds, and one educated person can impact the decisions and aspirations of a whole family. This is the way education slowly starts to become a tool for social change.

The future is for those who can THINK

The world is changing at a rapid pace thanks to artificial intelligence, automation and digital media. Information is now more easily available, but determining what is true is increasingly difficult. Students therefore need more than the ability to memorise information.They must be curious, analytical, adaptable and capable of evaluating the information they encounter.

Students who know all the answers will not necessarily be the ones best equipped for the future. They will be the ones who can ask the right questions, look at evidence, change when necessary and think for themselves. With technology increasingly able to answer questions, perhaps the most important skill will be knowing which questions to ask.

Education is power that creates independent minds

Education can open a mind, a degree can open a career. Knowledge can enable a person to identify injustice, grasp opportunity and challenge misinformation. A falsehood can be challenged by critical thinking and intellectual freedom can help a society not accept authority without question.

So, education is the power, not because education makes people rebellious or against those who govern, but because it makes them independent thinkers. That's why unaccountable power has always been uneasy with an educated society.

Apparently, the best education system is not one that produces citizens who agree with everything they hear. It is one that produces citizens who can ask difficult questions, demand evidence, tolerate disagreement and imagine something better. 

Thus, a society that teaches its people to think produces citizens capable of shaping their own future, and this is indeed intimidating to those in power who wish to rule and not serve. So, the question is whether we wish to hone education as power or be honed by those in power.

History remembers civilizations not by how rich people were, but by what they thought, learnt, invented, and discovered. 

The Library of Alexandria still feels heavy as one of history’s biggest tragedies, not because the building got burned, but because humanity lost whole bodies of knowledge that we couldn’t just recover later. Wars wrecked manuscripts, dictators put a chokehold on books, and time itself erased countless stories, bit by bit, until they were gone. Each generation looks back at those disappearances with this regret, wondering how history might have moved in a different direction if those volumes had survived.

But here we are, in one of the most technologically advanced eras humans have ever lived through, and it seems we’re making a similar mistake again, not with fire, but with scanners this time. And who is to be blamed? Human greed. 

Videos of rare books being cut are circulating online. Fresh reports say AI companies have been buying massive quantities of physical books, even rare copies and out-of-print editions, then cutting off their spines and scanning every page just to train artificial intelligence models. Afterward, the original books get destroyed, because it’s supposedly cheaper and quicker than preserving them intact. Court papers and legal hearings indicate that this kind of destructive scanning is now baked into the AI industry’s competitive push for high-quality, human-written data.

Legally, a lot of this might be allowed. Morally, though, it leaves behind questions no courtroom can really settle , at least not in any satisfying way. Because a book isn’t only information written on papers. A book is memory , culture, and history you can actually hold in your hands.

Destroying Books Was a Choice, Not a Necessity

The most uncomfortable aspect of this story is that the destruction of books was never an unavoidable consequence of digitisation. And that's where this approach becomes ethically and morally wrong.  Libraries, museums and universities have spent decades preserving fragile manuscripts while simultaneously making them available digitally. Many institutions, including Harvard University, have shown that we can scan and digitalise books without actually destroying the original!

However special equipment, trained archivists, careful handling and much more time is needed for preservation of books, and this is the economical factor that is being avoided. The same operation of cutting the spine off a book and putting it through an industrial scanner is a dramatic improvement in both speed and cost. The financial reward for the industry that's racing to develop the next generation of AI models is clear.

This is where the discussion goes beyond the technical and into the philosophical realm. But whether books can be preserved is no longer the question. They can. The problem is that these big AI Companies who can easily pay for preserving these books are okay with destroying them.

No AI company has publicly claimed that history is expendable, nor is there evidence that they intend to erase literary heritage. But, every industry shows its priorities in the decisions it takes. With the continuing triumph of speed over preservation, when it's done for efficiency and cost-saving, a question arises: Are the commercial considerations starting to undermine cultural responsibility?

Throughout the history of technology, new innovations have always promised to make life simpler. It should never lead to us being lax in what we inherit. 

A Book Is More Than Just The Words Inside It Is

There are people who believe in destructive scanning who say that nothing is being destroyed since everything is kept in a digital format. If the information persists, why should the material object? The answer is no big surprise for those who have a deep passion for books.

A book is not a piece of information. If it were just information, printed books would have been eliminated on the day the Internet came along. After all, almost all classic novels, scientific papers and historical texts are on the internet and available within a few seconds. But bookstores are still thriving, libraries are never empty and millions of readers opt to read books instead of e-books.

This decision does not have much to do with convenience. Books are experiences. They smell of old paper, feel like worn paper and have the feel of a product designed to last generations. The second hand book will most likely be marked in some way with underlined passages, missing bookmarks or handwritten notes that were written by an owner who the reader will never see. Those little flaws become the unspoken dialogue in time.

The words narrate one story while the book tells another. This is something that people who don't read novels very often do know unconsciously. Often students will print out key notes rather than read the notes on screen. Even if you've a laptop and a tablet, writers still carry notebooks around. Individuals write letters rather than scan them into folders. Childhood diaries, family recipe books and old journals are kept as they have emotional value in themselves.

Humans aren't just focused on consuming information, we establish connections with it. What might be preserved here is the text, but all the things that made books part of our common literary culture are lost.

Profit Is Starting To Decide What We Preserve

Books are necessary for AI companies because they require humanity. But guess the irony is greater.  Technology has been offering a vision of a future where machines would produce unlimited knowledge for years. Rather, the AI craze has exposed something new. Human creativity is used in machines. They need authentic writing produced by authors, researchers, journalists and thinkers long before artificial intelligence became part of everyday life. 

That reliance has made books one of the most valuable commodities in the AI economy. The use of AI to learn from human knowledge isn't inherently bad. All generations have brought learning from others. What concerns them now is that centuries of human creativity are becoming seen as just a source for commercial products.

A rare book that used to be cultural heritage gets turned into training data, a cultural heritage book becomes a training data set, a book that was exclusively written, becomes a mere data, and the books that survived invasions, world wars and natural calamities are all now a mere set of data.  The transformation is subtle, but its implications are profound. History stops being something to preserve and gradually becomes something to process.

This may be the natural consequence of a competitive industry. All firms wish for bigger data sets, improved models, and quicker product releases. Growth is expected by investors and timing is all about money and efficiency in the markets. In such an environment, it's logical for a company to select the less expensive choice. However, economically sound is not necessarily ethically sound, isn’t it?

Civilisations have been able to thrive because previous generations saved far more than they immediately needed. . They preserved monuments for their own sake, defended languages known by only a few, and preserved libraries containing books which many never read. They knew that culture does not necessarily have to be quantified monetarily.

Today It Is Rare Books. Where Does the Line Move?

At present, reports largely involve rare and out-of-print books rather than unique historical manuscripts. It would be inaccurate to suggest otherwise. But technological history teaches us that practices rarely remain confined to their original boundaries.

The original social media were never designed to affect elections. Smartphones weren't meant to be a constant presence in every human moment. Streaming services had no idea that they would come along and dramatically change entire film industries. Technology grows where it is encouraged to grow. The same applies with this also.

With the growing diversity and realness of the sources that AI models depend on for human writing, society will have more challenging questions to answer. What happens when there is very little regional literature and it becomes very profitable? Where do endangered-language books go? If there are only a few physical copies remaining, what then?

These are not forecasts or estimates, but questions that deserve to be asked before circumstances force us to answer them. Once destroyed, there is no second chance for reconsidering a rare book. A copy in digital form can retain all words but can it maintain authenticity?

In Trying to Make AI More Human, Are We Making Humans More Like Machines?

It might be the strangest irony of this technological revolution that it has nothing to do with artificial intelligence. It is all about us!

Over the past few decades, researchers have been making efforts to equip machines with human-like thinking capabilities. They have taught them to recognise emotions and communicate naturally, imitate creativity, and understand language. Each advancement has led to machines being closer and closer to human actions. But, as machines grow increasingly human, human beings appear to be going in the other direction.

We are becoming more and more about celebrating speed over patience, summaries over understanding and efficiency over experience. AI composes our messages, condenses our books, creates our reports and spawns our concepts. We skim, rather than read. Rather than reflect, we encourage. Rather than make, we automate.

The threat is not one of total replacement of the human race by AI. The greatest risk is that man slowly starts to imbibe the values of machines.  When every choice is made on the basis of speed, cost and optimisation, we may end up being a civilization of output over understanding. One day we might know that we have the most intelligent machines ever created and forget to remember why books, art and history were important other than for the information they contained.

The Future Should Not Make Us Forget The Past

AI is definitely one of the greatest technological accomplishments of humankind. It could change medicine, education, scientific discovery and many other things. It should keep on going. 

True progress never came when cultural responsibility was given up. It is not a debate on scanning books or training AI Models. It's about the values that will define the future that we are creating. When it comes to preserving our literary heritage, if we're only looking at reducing expenses, we might end up with a world that's been digitised, but with far fewer books remaining.

Inventions are not the only things by which a civilisation is judged in history but also the treasures it chooses to preserve. Maybe someday AI will have the ability to recall all the books people have ever written. But what’s a bigger issue is whether humans will still be able to recall why those books even existed. The problem is trivial right now but in the long run it’ll change the world, and that, perhaps, won’t be for good.