Students, under the aegis of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), protested at the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTU-H) on November 16 against the irregularities in PhD admissions and was conducted on November 16. Not only did the students burn an effigy of Dr Ch Venkata Ramana Reddy, Director, Admissions, they also demanded that action should be taken against him by the authorities.

What are the complaints? Student leaders Javvadi Dilip and Ashok Goud alleged that there are irregularities that are rampant when it comes to PhD admissions and as a result, this is leading to loss of opportunities for those students who belong to the reserved categories, as per a report in The Hans India. Dilip said that those students who were qualified to get seats in the open category were shown under the BC-D category and hence, seats were allocated to them under the BC-D general quota. This showed how officials might have been misleading the university when it comes to the process of admissions and seat allocation as well, added Dilip.

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In the same way, when the SC and ST students have NET, SET and GATE merits, they were unable to secure any seats in the open category and were being allocated under the reservation quota of the respective communities. Moreover, those candidates who hadn't qualified for the written tests nor did their names appear in the lists of interviews were the ones reportedly getting admissions. In this way, about 50 meritious students from the SC and ST categories were being denied selections in the open category of PhD admissions, said the students.