The University of Delhi located in the national capital of Delhi is one of the most prestigious universities in India. The university is financed by the Indian Government and was founded in the year 1922. It provides courses both undergraduate and postgraduate. The present chancellor of this university is Mr. Mohammed Hamid Ansari, who is the vice-president of India. The THES-QS world universities ranking has ranked the university as the number one university which is a non-IIT in the whole of India. The university is quipped with two campuses, that is the north campus and the south campus which are situated in the northern and the southern directions of the city correspondingly. North campus of the university is excellently connected to the Delhi Metro yellow line. The station is known as the Vishwavidyalaya which refers to the word “university” both in Sanskrit and Hindi. The north campus of the university is at a distance of 2.5 km from the Vidhan Sabha of Delhi and is at a distance of 7.0 km as of from the Inter State Bus Terminus (ISBT).

The foundation for the University of Delhi had been laid in the year 1922 in the form of a teaching, residential and unitary university via an act passed by the Central Legislative Assembly. The first ever convocation took place on 26th March in the year 1923 in which 750 invitees were there. This convocation was conducted inside Assembly Hall inside the Old Building of Secretariat which at the moment is the main venue for the Delhi Legislative Assembly. Amateur Degrees were awarded to Sir Md. Jahan, Lord Reading, the then viceroy of our nation and to Sir Hari Singh Gaur who was the first Vice Chancellor of the university. There were three colleges at that time, namely: Hindu College established in the year 1899, Ramjas College established in the year 1917 and St. Stephens College established in the year 1881. The University hence had an unpretentious start with merely three colleges in number, 750 students and two faculties of Sciences and Arts. The first college to be shifted to the north campus was the St. Stephens College in the year 1942. Hindu and Ramjas colleges followed.

In the month of October in the year 1933, the offices of the University of Delhi along with the library were moved to Viceregal Lodge Estate. This was actually the house of Rufus Isaacs, the then Governor General and the Viceroy of India. Later, Lord Mountbatten proposed to his would be wife Edwina in the room number 13 of the cottage on the 22nd of February 1922. Till date, this place is the center of this University which forms to be the main campus. Besides the central management offices, sports complex, and the examination offices, the chief divisions of the Science Faculty are homed inside Viceregal Lodge Estate. The vice chancellor of the university at that time, Sir Maurice Gawyer, realized the significance of an eminent faculty, researched for the aptitude all across the nation and introduced men of distinction to the university, like Prof. T.R. Sheshadri for Chemistry, Prof. D.S. Kothari for Physics, Prof M L Bhatia for Zoology and Prof. P Maheshwari for Botany.

The year of silver jubilee of the University of Delhi struck the independence of India as well and the flag of the nation was for the very first time hoisted inside the central building by Mr. VKRV Rao. On the other hand, it became almost impossible for convocation ceremony of the same year to be conducted because of the disturbances in the partition; hence, a special celebration was conducted in the year 1948. Jawahar Lal Nehru, the then prime minister had duly attended this ceremony along with Zakir Hussain, Lady Mountbatten, Lord Mountbatten, S.S. Bhatnagar and Abdul Kalam Azad. After 25 years, the celebrations of the golden jubilee were escorted by Indira Gandhi, the prime minister of India at that time, Amrita Pritam, M S Subbulakshmi and Amrita Pritam. In the past seven decades the university has come out to be one of the leading and the best universities across India. At the moment there are around 86 academic departments, fourteen faculties and 79 odd colleges scattered all across the city of Delhi which have more than 220,000 students in all.

The south campus of the University of Delhi carries out different degree courses under various faculties. Students enrolling themselves into different courses like Hindi, Political Science, English, Philosophy, Commerce, Mathematics and History at the postgraduate levels have the alternative of joining the university in two ways viz. directly inside the main south campus or by means of different colleges. Students wanting to get admission in the university or in the affiliated colleges, require filling a special kind of Centralized Registration Form, since the lessons for such courses are conducted in South Campus instead of the colleges. Courses like MFC, MBE and MBA have a different procedure for the admission. The tests of admission are conducted on a local basis in the city of Delhi for the courses like M. Tech in Electronics of Microwave, M. Sc. Electronics, PG Hindi Journalism — Certificate/Diploma, and M.A. Russian. It is recommended to the candidates to visit the concerned offices of the department for more information and admission forms.

The University of Delhi has thirty four libraries in all and provides a generous subscription to around twenty nine electronic databases. Besides this, there are additional twenty electronic databases accessible by means of UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium. Besides this, the university encourages e-resources for open access as well. Apart from this, the university is also carrying out Information Literacy Programs to be taken advantage of by the students, members of the faculty and researchers.

The Hindu College stands to be one of the oldest and most prominent colleges that have been affiliated by the University of Delhi. The college offers good number of courses in social sciences, humanities and sciences. Similarly, St. Stephen’s is considered to be one of the best colleges of the country. Many other colleges affiliated to the Univeristy have gradually gained credibility of their own in terms of quality of education, facilities and infrastructure.