Lucknow: Arindam Chaturvedi, a 23-year-old student from Lucknow University’s (LU) Department of Ancient Indian History and Archaeology (AIHA), has become the first candidate from the university to secure admission to a PhD programme after completing a four-year undergraduate programme without pursuing postgraduation, under the new National Education Policy (NEP) rules.Arindam not only topped the LU PhD entrance test 2026 but also became the youngest Junior Research Fellow in the department, with 41 papers accepted for publication in UGC-CARE-listed, international and Scopus-indexed journals.He has presented papers at 28 national and international seminars.He also secured All India Rank (AIR) 1 with a perfect 100 percentile in Archaeology in a UGC-NET cycle and later qualified UGC-NET in History with 99.08 percentile.“He is the only candidate from our department who enrolled in the four-year undergraduate programme (Honours with Research),” said Prof Anil Kumar, head of the department.The son of a businessman and an alumnus of City Montessori School, Arindam aspires to build a career in academics. “Our country needs good academicians, and I aspire to become a professor one day,” said Arindam, a resident of LDA Colony.Under NEP 2020, a student can pursue a PhD directly after graduation without a master’s degree by fulfilling specific conditions. They must have completed a four-year undergraduate programme with a research component, among other requirements.
