South Indian movie star Siddharth (was also seen in “Rang De Basanti” and recent release “Striker”) was on top of the world after he found his photograph alongside mega star Amitabh Bachchan on the latest prospectus of Delhi University’s Kirori Mal College.

“I’m on the cover of Kirori Mal College’s prospectus this year next to legendary alumnus Amitabh Bachchan… my amma (mother) is ecstatic. Cheers,” Siddharth tweeted recently.

Both the actors studied in the same college, but were in different courses. While Mr. Bachchan pursued BSc, Siddharth did his BCom.

Now,science students applying to Delhi University have another option at hand. This year onward, DU is starting a five year integrated M.Sc in earth sciences after class XII. The course,being offered by the university’s department of geology, will have 25 seats and a student will have the option to exit the programme at the end of three years with a B.Sc degree in earth sciences.

The admissions to the integrated MSc course will be based on IIT-JEE score of the candidates. But those,who did not appear for IITJEE, can also apply. If any vacancies are left after admitting candidates with a JEE score, they will be filled up by the second category of candidates who would have applied only on the basis of their class XII marks.

The application forms for this course will be available from Tuesday. The last date for receipt of the forms is June 25. The course will have 10 semesters.

Delhi University’s department of English started the sale of forms for the Common Aptitude Test in English (CATE) on Thursday, May 20, 2010.

Nearly 500 forms were sold at 17 centres on the first day. As reported in the last post, the forms will be available till May 31 and the will be held on June 9.

17 colleges, including Hindu, IP College for Women, Miranda House, Lady Shri Ram College, Kamala Nehru College, will admit students in BA (honours) English through CATE this year.

This year the Delhi University has published nearly 15,000 forms for the 500 seats in 17 colleges.

The process has been decentralized this year and students can buy and submit the forms at any of the 17 participating colleges. The form costs Rs 300 (includes the registration as well as the examination fee).

The test will have two parts. Only those answer sheets, which meet a certain cut-off in the objective-type questions, will be evaluated further while eliminating the rest. However, there will be no elimination for the OBC candidates. Students with a minimum of 60% aggregate and 60% in English can apply for this course.

Forms for admissions to all undergraduate courses of Delhi University will be available from May 28. The last date for sale and submission of application forms is June 11.

About 65 regular colleges will admit over 54,000 students to various science, commerce and humanities courses over a two-month period.

The first cut-off list is expected to come on June 22, followed by a three-day admission process, followed by the second cut-off on June 26. The third cut-off is expected on July 1.

Admissions to courses offered by the School of Open Learning (SOL) will start on June 1 and will be completed by August 31. However, you will be able to get admission into the SOL till October 1, with late fee.

Meanwhile, the Combined Aptitude Test for English (CATE), the common admission test for admission to a BA in English (Honours), is also getting bigger with six more colleges opting for the test. Lady Shri Ram College (LSR) and Miranda House, among six others, have opted for the test this year, taking the total to 17 colleges.

The University has made a few changes in the format of CATE this time. Also, this year, forms will be available at all colleges which have opted for the CATE unlike last year when aspirants could buy forms only at the Faculty of Arts.

In 2009, over 6,000 aspirants took the test, fighting for approximately 350 seats. This year around 500 seats will be offered via CATE. CATE forms will be available from May 20, and the last date for submission of forms is May 31. The exam will be held on June 9.

Maitreyi College is the only college in Delhi University to offer a postgraduate diploma in nanotechnology. This year the forms would be available from May 20 and the last date for submission of forms is June 21.

A professional in this field can explore career opportunities in various sectors (nanomedicine, stem cell development, pharmaceutical companies, nanotoxicology and nanopower generating sector, besides R&D laboratories).

As regards eligibility, candidates must have 50% aggregate in any of these courses – BSc(H) botany / chemistry/electronics/ physics /zoology; BSc (Programme) life sciences/ applied life sciences /physical sciences/applied physical sciences/electronics; BTech and BSc (general) with relevant subjects.

Application forms for the PG diploma in nanotechnology can be obtained from the college office on payment of Rs 100 or by demand draft in favor of Principal, Maitreyi College payable at New Delhi on all working days from 10 am to 1 pm. The forms can also be downloaded from the website (maitreyi.du.ac.in).

The completed application forms along with the requisite fee of Rs 100, and self-attested copies of all the certificates, should reach the college office on or before June 21.

The total number of seats available for the programme is 30 and the fees for the entire programme is Rs 10,000. This course is also open for boys. An aptitude test will be conducted on June 30 since the total number of seats is limited.

Union HRD minister, Mr. Kapil Sibal, has announced that like U.S and Germany, India will also have an Ivy League of topmost universities of the country within two years.

A committee to devise guidelines to identify these universities was formed on Saturday during the meeting of vice chancellors of pre-existing central universities, the minister announced. Out of the 22 central universities, VCs of 21 attended the meeting held on University of Hyderabad’s (UoH) campus.

The committee comprises vice chancellors of UoH, Delhi University (DU) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) among others.

According to Mr. Sibal, the universities in the Ivy League will be given complete autonomy without any government control in developing the staff, faculty, students and research and development. Seven VCs have been selected to form a core committee to oversee the activities of all central universities in the country.

One of the best thing about the formation of this Ivy league is the implementation of “credit transfer system” from the coming academic year. This system will allow the students from one university to attend the courses of other universities.

In an unfortunate incident, a 22 year old, BA second year student of Hansraj College was found dead in the hostel room.

Visually challenged, Mukesh Kumar was doing Hindi Honors from Hansraj College. His body was found hanging from the ceiling fan around 8.15pm on Tuesday.

The death of Mukesh is considered as murder because his hands were tied behind his back and other evidences indicate towards some foul play or murder. Police is questioning hostel mates of Mukesh.

Police suspects that some insider might have killed Mukesh. But there are possibilities that somebody sneaked in the campus and killed Mukesh as the residence area allotted to blind students is one of the most accessible portions of the hostel.

The security at the Hansraj College hostel is very strict, nobody, except ID card-holders are allowed to enter in the campus and this incident has shocked everybody.

Mukesh was from a poor family in Agra district of UP. Police and authorities are not saying much as they are waiting for the post-mortem report.

The DU basketball team that went to Varanasi, to compete in All-India Inter-University Basketball championship held at Banaras Hindu University, from January 27 to February 1, was forced to loose at gunpoint.

Some unidentified goons threaten to kill DU basketball team members if they don’t forfeit their match against the host team.


The North Zone basketball champion, Delhi University basketball team was one of the favorite teams to win the tournament but they quit their semi final match against the hosts after the third quarter due to life threats and unfair play.

After returning from the Varanasi, DU basketball team captain Harish Dahiya complained about the unruly behavior of the hosts. He not only blamed the unknown criminals but also the BHU officials, who manipulated other teams and overlooked the criminals to promote their two home teams.

Not only DU team but team members of Jaipur, Chennai and Pune also said the same incident occurred with them. Chennai’s Satyabhama University team is considering going to court on this issue.

You can understand the truth of the complaints of DU and other teams by this fact that both the home teams, BHU and MG Kashi Vidyapeeth, reached the final and BHU won the title.

Though I am yet to find a girl I can propose on the coming Valentine’s Day (and I don’t have any hope of finding one ..) but I always wonder how do we guys actually propose a girl. It would certainly help if we could get our hands on some tips or tricks that shows us the rocket science of how to propose a girl. I recently came across an article titled “Top 5 Ways to Propose on Valentine’s Day“, the article provides all the possible ways that we guys can use to propose the girl of our dreams on this Valentines Day.

Go through the article and please share your experience with me and the other readers of the Delhi University Blog.

The effect of the recession is still going on in the third world countries. But more and more companies are showing keen interest to participate in the University’s Central Placement drive beginning on January 25. Central Placement Cell (CPC) officials are showing special interest in recruiting differently-abled students from DU. CPC has asked different college Principals for compiling the performance records of students in this category.

Last year, only two differently-abled students were recruited from Delhi University. This year the number is expected to rise.

CPC was started to recruit final year undergraduate from different colleges through a central recruitment process in 2008. CPC has made a stronghold with the University and companies are willing to recruit more students this time. CPC has also been promised a package of Rs 14-16 lakh. Forty-four students were recruited by five companies in the first placement session in December last year. This year eight new companies are participating in this placement marathon. And some of these companies are planning to recruit anywhere between 50 to 100 students together.

I really appreciate this move of providing equal employment opportunities to the differently abled students.

Delhi University Blog wishes best of luck to all the students participating in this placement session.