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Widespread protests broke out in India on Thursday when SSC Selection Post Phase 13 exam hopefuls marched to the streets in a "Delhi Chalo" movement, as reported by The Hindu, to assemble at Jantar Mantar demanding explanations for what they referred to as systematic mismanagement of their recruitment test.

The continuing exam, which began on July 24 and continues until August 1, has seen many problems, with students fuming over claimed administrative shortcomings, technical failures, and what protesters termed overzealous police tactics against peaceful demonstrators.

Candidates have expressed grave complaints regarding the exam centres being as far away as 500 kilometers from their homes, then showing up only to find last-minute cancellations. One particularly vivid accusation saw protesters referring to venues where cattle heads were stored on the ground floor while students tried conducting their exams on higher floors.

The use of bouncers at examination centers has especially infuriated the students, who wonder why security staff usually deployed for crowd management were found at learning facilities where candidates were only looking for improved examination conditions.

There have been technical problems that have marred the examination process, including mass reporting of server crashes, unresponsive computer systems, and faulty equipment. Activists uncovered that SSC authorities admitted to receiving more than 55,000 complaints about the ongoing exam in recent meetings.

With three lakh students taking the present exam and 55,000 registered grievances, the forthcoming SSC-CGL exam on August 13 expecting 30 lakh aspirants and the capacity of the system to manage such numbers have been a point of concern.

Other students have even questioned the process of selecting the vendor, arguing that the government seems to have been giving a very compromised tender whereby the company that was supposed to undertake the entire exercise has an appalling record to boot.

The financial and psychological burden on the aspirants has been immense, with many investing thousands of rupees traveling to distant centers only to be told of cancellations with no indication of rescheduling, leading to lost preparation time and resources.

Social media has maximized the voices of the students, with hashtags such as #SSC_System_Sudharo, #SSCMisManagement, and #SSCVendorFailure trending on X, a social media website, garnering support from all over the country.

The National Students' Union of India (NSUI) has come out in support of the protesters, with president Varun Choudhary participating in the rally and claiming that the police launched lathi charges against calmly protesting students.

A 27-year-old IT professional who belonged to the Dalit community was hacked to death during the daytime in Tamil Nadu on Sunday, reported The Indian Express. Both the family and the police described the murder as an honour killing.

It was Kavin Selva Ganesh who was killed.  The accused murderer was the brother of a girl he had dated for a long time.  In relation to an attack on Kavin outside a private Siddha hospital in KTC Nagar, Tirunelveli, where the girl Subashini works as a consultant, accused S Surjith, 21, also turned himself in.

The alleged is the son of police sub-inspectors Saravanan and Krishnakumari, who are also been made co-accused in the case for attempting to provoke the crime and threatening Kavin in the past.

Kavin, a graduate in engineering and a resident of Arumugamangalam village near Thoothukudi district and working with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in Chennai, was a close friend of Subashini since school days.

As per The Indian Express, the relationship between Kavin and Subashini was friendly but had been met with increasing hostility on the part of the woman's family, who belonged to the Most Backward Class (MBC). Members of Kavin's family, who are Scheduled Caste (SC), claim that they had been threatened repeatedly.

On Sunday, Kavin had gone to KTC Nagar to see Subashini about his ill grandfather, the report added. There, Surjith met Kavin and informed him that his parents wished to meet him. Believing that Surjith was genuine, Kavin got onto his two-wheeler and they proceeded towards Astalakshmi Nagar.

S Tamizhselvi, Kavin's mother, reported to Palayamkottai police that Surjith braked suddenly and abused her son by asking how he had the courage to love a girl from a different caste. Surjith, in his turn, as reported, pulled out a sickle hidden behind his back and attacked Kavin repeatedly. The Indian Express had eyewitnesses claiming that Kavin attempted to flee but was pursued and hacked to death 200 meters from the hospital.

Surjith has been taken into custody and a case registered against him and his parents under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 2015.

The report states that CCTV recordings of the crime scene have been retrieved and the victim's body was turned over for post-mortem to Tirunelveli Government Hospital.

Kavin's family members have not accepted his body and are demanding legal action against Surjith's parents, holding them as masterminds behind the murder. "They were resistant towards the relationship from the beginning and kept troubling my son time and again. Even now, they may be using their posts trying to influence the case," Tamizhselvi filed in her complaint.

There was a protest in areas of Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi districts where the people called for justice and suspension of police officers involved

Five years after the National Education Policy (NEP) was put into practice, the Education Ministry has released two new digital platforms — Sanskrit Dictionary App and Career Counsellor App — in an effort to empower students and bolster India's education system.

The Sanskrit Dictionary App is an innovative attempt to revive and spread Sanskrit, a highly ancient language that forms the basis of the majority of Indian literature and intellectual discourse. With its accessibility, the app presents a vast vocabulary of Sanskrit words, meaning, grammatical usage, and contextual usage. Students, linguistics activists, and researchers are now able to enjoy this rich philological heritage in the palm of their hands.

"Far from being a dictionary, the app is a gateway to India's intellectual and cultural heritage," averred a Ministry official. The app would be beneficial for school-going students, college students, as well as research scholars who do classical and linguistic research.

The launch of the job Adviser App, an online advice tool that provides students with personalized job recommendations based on their major, interest, and skill set, is also noteworthy.  The app uses algorithms driven by artificial intelligence to recommend professional streams, vocations, and courses.

Students of today have a huge load in deciding on a career. The Career Adviser App was meant to guide them with genuine, individualized advice," the Ministry said.

All these initiatives are part of the overall dreams of the NEP — improving education to be more holistic, adaptive, and attuned to the demands of the 21st century. By adopting technology, the Ministry aims to give all students, regardless of their socio-economic background, access to good learning material.

The professionals have welcomed the initiative with open arms, and they aver that such apps can democratize learning and enable more informed decision-making. As India becomes a knowledge economy, these efforts are a step towards bringing in multilingualism, employability, and lifelong learning.

The two apps are downloadable today, representing an era when tradition is married to technology to bring in India's learners.

Widespread chaos during the 2025 Staff Selection Commission (SSC) Selection Post Phase 13 exams has sparked a massive wave of protests across India, as lakhs of government job aspirants and educators voice outrage over repeated technical glitches, abrupt cancellations, and alleged mismanagement by the Commission. The outrage has erupted both on the ground and across social media, with hashtags like #SSCMisManagement, #SSCSystemSudharo, and #JusticeForAspirants trending nationally in the last week.

The Technical Failures, Sudden Cancellation Leave the Aspirants Stranded

The Phase 13 computer-based examinations which took place between July 24 and August 1, were hit by serious hiccups. Aspirants practicing in different parts of the country sobbed their misery that they have travelled long distances, some covering more than a thousand kilometers and spent a lot of money only to arrive at their respective exam centres only to be told that their exams have been cancelled without any prior warning. Incidents included:

1. The sudden and unannounced cancellation of exams in a number of centres.
2. Frequent software crashes, server failures, and faulty biometric systems.
3. Students assigned to distant or even wrong exam centres
4. Poor infrastructure such as faulty furniture, unavailability of fans, and defective computers are some of the other factors contributing to stress on candidates.

Most applicants attributed these shortcomings to the fact that the Commission recently changed exam processing companies. The new agency, with an apparently controversial background and even a past blacklist, was accused of failing to manage even smaller exams- which has caused concerns about its capabilities with bigger SSC CGL 2025 exams, which is widely anticipated to be participated in by over 3 million competitors. 

Protests Spread, Viral Videos Spark Public Outrage

The rage has soon manifested itself in the form of street demonstrations Delhi emerged as the center of the protest with thousands of aspirants and popular educators such as English teacher Neetu Singh protesting at Jantar Mantar and the CGO Complex to demand reforms, accountability and a reversal of the outsourcing of the exam administration.

Several videos of furious students being forcefully thrown out or even supposedly beaten up due to making valid points at the test centres have gone viral. On the one hand, several of the protest leaders and students claimed to have been met by police with forceful dispersion and temporary arrests, which once again added to the censure via online campaigns and offline protests.

What is it that Students and Teachers are Demanding?

Primary demands by protesting aspirants and teachers are:

• Immediate review and overhaul of the current exam vendor arrangement.
• Timely, transparent communication regarding exam schedules, cancellations, and centre allotments.
• Improved infrastructure and fair allocation of exam centres, ensuring candidates are not burdened unnecessarily.
• Accountability from SSC officials and a complete investigation into the recent failures and alleged misconduct by staff at exam centres.

The ongoing chaos has severely shaken the confidence of aspirants in India’s most significant government recruitment drives. With the SSC CGL 2025 exam, one of the largest competitive exams in India, scheduled to start soon, many fear that similar logistical failures could endanger the future of millions of youth seeking government jobs. 

The #SSCMismanagement is still a trending topic on most social networks, and stakeholders want deeper changes to the system. With the continued protests, the scorching heat is being felt on the SSC and the government which needs to show some decisive action to reinstate the faith in the exam process. 

For more latest updates on the SSC exam 2025 protest, stay tuned with Edinbox.

The loss of seven lives and injuries to at least 27 more in a building collapse at a government school in Rajasthan's Jhalawar district is a tragedy beyond words that was entirely preventable. Safety must be the guiding principle of schooling, starting with the journey to school, the stint within the institution, and the return home. Apparently, officials in Rajasthan and other places have not seen fit to fill glaring gaps in building maintenance, which resulted in the rundown structure collapsing at the Piplodi Government School in Jhalawar, killing children, including a six-year-old. Two other school structures also collapsed elsewhere, but students had a providential escape because one in Nagaur had been closed preventively as it had suffered damage and the second in Karauli had not yet opened for the day. State governments, being the last in line of responsibility regarding public safety, naturally become smarter after the event, and the Rajasthan one is no exception: a check on all public buildings has been mandated by the BJP government, and the Union Ministry of Education has insisted on a safety audit at schools, which includes the condition of student facilities; five officials were suspended to appease the public. What occurred in Piplodi is worst, as students had complained about the roof being damaged by rain, but they were ignored by authorities and teachers despite common sense. It is also shocking that the effect of the monsoon was not expected by district authorities, despite a report by the state government of 2,200 schools being in a bad state and 49,000 requiring repairs to electrical fixtures and water systems.

The inattention to quality and safe public education is a worldwide shame for the nation, and it has been ongoing throughout the decades despite the literature that highlights the critical role of schooling not only for economic progress, but also for the improvement and health of individuals. The Centre has been imposing a 4% Health and Education Cess since 2018-19, with the recent annual collection reaching Rs 73,000 crore, most of it spent on primary and middle school programs for the poor. It cannot be said, at the same time, that India boasts world-class economic growth as well as not having enough money to spend on school safety. There are harrowing accounts of school-going students involved in road accidents from across the nation due to lack of transport access. Severe monsoon rain, driven by climate change, is challenging aging public structures and dwellings. To add to this, western India is expected to bear excessive, unpredictable rain as part of this trend, and increased cyclones are emerging in the Arabian Sea compared to the Bay of Bengal. Those factors should ring alarm bells in all the states, and corrective measures in regard to government buildings must be taken after. Secure, universal, and free education is the foundation of a Viksit Bharat in real terms, and authorities should do everything to ensure that within ten years.

5 IITs to get over 1,300 additional seats in UG, PG and PhD courses for 2025-26: … Over 1,300 seats have been added across undergraduate (UG), postgraduate (PG) with some of them also including the doctoral-level from five third-generation Indian Institutes of Technology (IITS) for academic session... Of the 1,364 seats that have been added in IITs for year 2025-26, (the highest) is at-IIT Bhilai which has seen an increase of378 (seats), next was higher percentage of increase only.I will come separately with numbers also. The otherIiTs like Dharwad --343,the new one Jammu--251,Tirupati—Iit Tiruvananthapuram(193).

Seats are being upgraded in various courses in these IITs according to course requirements intimated by these institutions. Seat addition sanction has been accorded for these IITs till 2028-29 in phases," a senior ministry of education official said.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Union Budget 2025-26 announced additional 6,500 seats for IITs added after 2014. Of the six new IITs added in 2015 and 2016—Palakkad, Bhilai, Jammu, Dharwad, Tirupati, and Goa. IIT Goa was not included in expansion as it is yet to be shifted to a permanent campus, whereas according to the initial plan all new IITs were to become operational within four years of integration. The Union Cabinet in its 7th May, 2025 meeting approved it, enhancing the academic and infrastructure strength of the five new IITs at an investment of ₹11,828.79 crore to be incurred over the four years (2025-26 to 2028-29). Altogether, all the five new IITs of Bhilai, Dharwad, Jammu, Palakkad, and Tirupati collectively in the four years from 2025-26 to 2028-29 will be increasing 6,576 seats.

From them, IIT Bhilai will be added with maximum 1,485 seats followed by IIT Dharwad that adds another 1,473 and then comes the queue of new addition in other five colleges such as – (IIT Jammu-1288),(IIT Palakkad -1264) &(ITT Tirupati-1066). Counter to the four-year schedule of adding 6,576 seats are an additional 1,364 in the year ending on June 30 — and a proposed extra increase, beginning with a total push up by another that many students (for a new maximum increase over all those years of an eventual potential lift) will be enrolled during school year 2025-26

Following the period of overexpansion, these five IITs will have 13,687 students against their current student base of 7,111 – an increase of 92.47%.

The Union Cabinet in May sanctioned the creation of 130 teaching posts in these IITs and the process for hiring has already commenced, officials added.