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Senior political figure and ex, Union minister Karan Singh has expressed his serious concern over the decision to close Vaishno Devi Medical College, describing it as a significant blow to the higher studies and job opportunities in the Jammu region.

Dr Singh said the shutting down of the medical college was "hardly understandable, " particularly when at that time access to good medical education in Jammu and Kashmir ought to be a matter of increasing, not decreasing.

Dr Singh further pointed out that the medical college was able to take in an increasing number of local students over the next few years, especially the young ones from the Dogra community. By doing so, the college closing down has basically put a stop to the future educational options of the students who want to study medicine in the region.

In a situation of national shortage of medical seats vis, a, vis student demand, shutting down makes no sense especially if the institution is functioning well. Dr Singh added that the college was going to be a source of more benefits for its students in the following academic years.

The shutting down of the college has, in his opinion, not only got students but also teachers, office staff, and health care workers of the associated hospital unsettled thus sending the wave of job losses in the region.

Employment and Regional Development Issues

Emphasizing the larger picture, Dr. Karan Singh remarked that the college was not only a place of education but also a major source of employment and a symbol of regional pride for Jammu.

He emphasized that colleges and universities are key players in the economic development of the locality, the accessibility of healthcare, the raising of human capital, potential, and the improvement of locals' skills.

Without getting into political disputes, he made a point that closing a school is one of those things that should never be rejoiced. He emphasized that the decisions made regarding education should be directed towards the long, term public interest.

Depoliticising Education Policy Demand

Dr Singh, mourning over what he considered to be the politicisation of the matter, pleaded with the government to take the higher education decisions in Jammu and Kashmir with a sense of social responsibility and a focus on developmental goals in the long run.

The Vaishno Devi Medical College closure flap is still a source of different views of education policy, regional employment, and the destiny of the medical students in Jammu.

Colleges located in the national capital are ready to organize devotional music series under the festival of 'Vasantotsav 2026'. At the same time, the government has planned 'Bhajan Clubbing' events in many of the Delhi University campuses from February 10 to 19.

Art, Culture, Language and Tourism Minister Kapil Mishra said that the purpose of the initiative is to bring the youth in touch with India's cultural and spiritual heritage through a modern form which they can relate to.

He mentioned that devotion through bhajan and kirtan has always been at the core of Indian culture and thus these activities have become very popular among the youth in the recent times.

Mishra said the programme is being run under the supervision of Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and that it is basically a youth cultural initiative where traditional devotional music is blended with modern musical styles.

Besides this, he mentioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statements on cultural traditions in the 'Mann Ki Baat' programme, and added that such projects have resulted in a greater number of people getting involved in spiritual and cultural activities.

'Bhajan Clubbing' series is set to kick, off on February 10 at Ramjas College with the Leela Band's act. Musicians Raghav Raja will play at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College on the following day, per the announcement.

India Music Collective focusing on bhajans and meditation will be the highlight program at ARSD College on February 12, whereas Sadho Band will be debuting at Shaheed Sukhdev College on the very same day. Rahasya Band is slated to perform at Shyam Lal College on February 13, Keshavam will be singing devotional hymns at PGDAV College, the announcement stated.

A bigger show with Keshavam will be held at the University Stadium on February 16. The series will finish up on February 19 with SAM Band's gig at Shivaji College, it said.

The way I see it, this music initiative is all about getting students to drop the headphones and dive back into their cultural and spiritual selves with the help of music. At the same time, it wants to show that these traditions can still sound cool and fresh to the contemporary ear, Mishra added.

On Tuesday, a special court under the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Alipore remanded Akhtar Ali, former Deputy Superintendent of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital and one of the main whistleblowers in the RG Kar corruption case, to judicial custody till February 17. After the issuance of an arrest warrant in the case of alleged misappropriation of funds at the state run medical institution, Ali handed himself over to the special CBI court. 

After he appeared, his lawyer submitted an application for bail that the CBI opposed strongly. Later, the court rejected the plea and ordered judicial custody. Akhtar Ali's arrest warrant was issued on Saturday. He came to the court less than 24 hours after the warrant was issued but did not surrender at that time. Ali subsequently mentioned that he would surrender on Monday but didn't show up, claiming illness. He eventually turned up before the court on Tuesday afternoon.

During the hearing, counsel for former RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh, advocate Sanjay Dasgupta, alleged that Akhtar Ali was deliberately delaying the legal process. “Despite the court’s direction, he did not appear and remained absconding. The roots of corruption are much deeper, and we have submitted documents supporting this claim,” Dasgupta told the court, while maintaining that his client had no role in the alleged scam.

The CBI questioned Ali’s claim of illness, pointing out that he was actively giving statements to the media during the same period. “You were fit enough to address the media but not to appear before the court,” the CBI’s counsel remarked.

His lawyer, who was defending Ali, argued that the first date of appearance was December 16 and after that, a petition was filed in the Calcutta High Court. He further said that Ali got sick at that time and couldn't go to the next hearings. The CBI countered the argument by saying that Ali had been regularly sent summons for questioning but had always been practically uncooperative.

Notably, Akhtar Ali was the complainant who first levelled allegations of financial corruption against former principal Sandip Ghosh, bringing the RG Kar Medical College scam into the public domain. However, following investigation, the CBI concluded that Ali himself was allegedly involved in financial irregularities and filed a chargesheet against him.

Earlier, the Calcutta High Court rejected Ali’s anticipatory bail plea, clearing the way for his arrest and subsequent judicial custody.

India has experienced a drastic decline in the number of government schools with around 18, 000 schools closing down over the last five years while private unaided schools keep growing rapidly, official data submitted to Parliament reveals.

During the session, Union Minister of Education Jayant Chaudhary, shared this information in the Rajya Sabha, February 4th, responding to CPI(M) MP John Brittas' question. The Member of Parliament had requested the information regarding the number of government schools that are currently running, have been closed over the past five years, along with the state wise school closure data, growth of private schools and enrollment figures at the time of closure.

Referring to DISE and UDISE (Unified District Information System for Education) data, the minister stated that the number of government schools in India had gone down from 10, 32, 019 in 2020, 21 to 10, 13, 322 in 2024, 25, thus a total decline of 18, 697 schools over the five years has been witnessed.

During the same period, the number of private unaided schools was increased by 8, 475 only in the span of one year indicating a drastic change in the schooling landscape of India.

Among the states, Madhya Pradesh leads in the tally of government schools recently closed; the aggregate figure of schools shut down during the last five years is as high as 6, 902.

Next in the series of highest closures, we find Jammu and Kashmir (4, 382), Assam (2, 008), Odisha (1, 631), and Himachal Pradesh (1, 116) all comprising the sum of the most closures.

Still, a few states have decided to follow a different pattern from the majority of the states. First of all, Rajasthan started 1, 342 government schools while Bihar established 765 schools during the same time period. Meanwhile, Telangana barely had 42 government schools being added.

Minister Chaudhary stressed that education is a subject on the Concurrent List of the Constitution, which entails that the state governments and Union Territory administrations primarily hold the authority to make decisions on the opening, closing, staffing, and funding of schools.

Taking the data into consideration, MP John Brittas resorted to X (formerly Twitter) to express his concerns over what he referred to as the alarming decline of government schooling all over India. “Government schooling is getting smaller. "Private schooling is expanding, " he said.He cautioned that the trend could severely impact children from rural and poor families who mainly rely on public education.

Experts on education think the data raise some vital questions about the availability, fairness, and what lies ahead for public schools in India at a time when ensuring education for all and improving learning outcomes remain the country's greatest challenges.

After Visva-Bharati, Kalyani University has now come under allegations of irregularities in faculty recruitment. Repeated complaints of this nature across various state government universities have deeply unsettled sections of the academic community. Earlier, an academic had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging that the recruitment examinations at Visva-Bharati were not transparent. Fingers were pointed at the university authorities as well as the Vice-Chancellor. Now, similar allegations have emerged from Kalyani University.

As per multiple sources, to maintain integrity and transparency in the recruitment process, Bidyut Chakraborty had formally appointed the National Testing Agency (NTA) and paid an amount of 10 lakh for the agency to conduct and manage the recruitment and selection process. Notices were uploaded on the NTA portal, the NTA website declared the dates for the Computer Based Test (CBT), NTA issued the admit cards, and the agency also conducted the tests. The results (merit list) for the MTS post were published by NTA following standard procedures and rules, and appointment letters were issued based on this merit list.

However, during Bidyut Chakraborty’s tenure as interim Vice-Chancellor, after NTA conducted recruitment examinations for posts such as Assistant Registrar (AR), Deputy Registrar (DR), Computer System Analyst, and Programmer (on 05/04/24), the results and merit lists were allegedly not published. Instead, Visva-Bharati reportedly completed the selection process secretly by issuing its own provisional merit list. From the outset, the selection process for SR, DR, and Computer System Analyst/Programmer posts has been accused of violating rules and lacking transparency.

Typically, the testing agency publishes results and the parent institutions follow the same process for recruitment. To date, there are still no results or merit lists for AR/DR posts available on the NTA website. Questions have been raised about how the university prepared its own merit list and on what basis appointments were made from an internal panel.

Meanwhile, in his letter, Kalyani University professor Dr. Tushar Patua disclosed that he belongs to the Scheduled Tribe community and has been serving as an Associate Professor (Elementary) at Kalyani University since June 8, 2012. On June 22, 2025, he submitted an application for the post of Associate Professor (ST), Level 14, in Visva, Bharati University, after the university had issued notification Advertisement No. 2/2025 dated May 29, 2025. He confessed that he had submitted the same application twice before, in 2019 and 2021, but his applications were cancelled without any reasons.

It was through the university notification that, on January 8, 2026, he found out that his name was struck off the list of candidates to be interviewed on January 12, 2026, although he fulfilled the minimum eligibility criteria.

He felt dejected and asked the exclusion reasons in order to weigh the option of filing a lawsuit. Since the author of the letter belongs to a Scheduled Tribe, allegations of caste-based discrimination in faculty recruitment have also been raised against the university’s senior authorities.

Meanwhile, a letter from the university to the Union Ministry of Education stated that the Selection Committee meeting for the Assistant Registrar (UR) post, which was advertised under Advertisement No. 1/2023 dated April 17, 2023, was held on December 1, 2025. Interviews were held with fifteen eligible candidates, including the complainant Kaushik Gorain.

The selection committee, after interviewing 13 candidates, have recommended one candidate to the executive council, which has approved the recommendation on December 5, 2025. Therefore, the appointment letter was issued to the selected candidate who joined on December 21, 2025.

Professor Kaushik Gorain in his letter makes an additional point of accusing the recruitment Assistant Registrar at Viswa, Bharati University of being full of irregularities. He has charged the process with a lack of transparency, fairness, due process, and stated that the NTA conducted the computer based test (CBT) on February 5, 2024, and the interviews on December 1, 2025.

Nevertheless, it is reported that the candidate who was twelfth in the provisional merit list has been said to have taken the post on December 21, 2025 without the interview results being officially announced or the final merit list being made available. He argued that such a scenario is a matter of the highest integrity for the recruitment process and that Visva, Bharati's brand as an institution founded by Rabindranath Tagore on the principles of excellence and fairness has been put in jeopardy.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) has given an announcement that they are going to allow the candidates an extended time for the registration of the Common University Entrance Test, Undergraduate (CUET UG) 2026 till 4th February, 2026 (Wednesday). It was kept as a secret from the public that the deadline would be extended until the very day of the announcement i.e. 30th January 2026 while at the time, registration was supposed to be closed on this day.

"National Testing Agency will take the Common University Entrance Test [CUET (UG)], 2026 from 11, 31 May 2026 (tentative) in Computer Based Test (CBT) mode at different centres located in various cities throughout the country and 15 cities outside India, which provides a single window opportunity to students seeking admission in any of the Central Universities/ Participating Universities (State/Deemed/Private) across the country, " NTA informed through an official notice.

Online application for the exam mentioned above is being accepted at https://cuet.nta.nic.in from 03 January 2026 onwards.

Referring to the Public Notice dated 03 January 2026 for the submission of the online application forms for CUET (UG) 2026, and considering the requests made by the candidates through various means for extension of the last date for submission of online application forms, NTA got a decision to allow an extension for the last date for submission of online application forms for CUET (UG), 2026. This is in order to permit the potential candidate(s) to register for the said exam.

To the candidates' convenience, the revised schedule has provision for the application form corrections window being opened online for the candidates from the 9th to the 11th (up to 11:50 pm) of February.

Step 1: Open the official CUET portal cuet.nta.nic.in in your browser.

Step 2: On the homepage, under the "Candidate Activity" section, you will notice the registration link. Click on it.

Step 3: After you have been a registered candidate, use your registration ID and password to log into the portal.

Step 4: Correctly fill in the application form with truthful details.

Step 5: Also, upload your properly scanned documents, which must comply with the given specifications.

Step 6: You can use any online payment mode to pay the application fee.

Step 7: After the submission, take a print of the confirmation page and keep it safe.

Candidates should note that the language and General Aptitude Test are included in the subjects. So, they can select a maximum of five (05) subjects only.