# DST ends scholarship for students who fail or skip exams 2026-11-10T03:32:31+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet The Department of Science and Technology has tightened the INSPIRE-Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE) scheme, scrapping the scholarship for any student who fails or misses a university examination. The annual ₹20,000 research mentorship grant is now available only in the third and fourth years, down from five years. The changes were announced on November 7, opening applications for the 2025 batch after a delay of more than a year. DST also introduced board-wise quotas for the 10,000 to 12,000 annual scholarships, based on the number of Class 12 examinees rather than applications received. Eligible candidates must be aged 17 to 22 and have passed Class 12 in 2025. The online window closes December 7 at 11.59 pm. Experts and students said the revisions could reduce financial support and alter the award’s distribution across states. ## Indian Opinion Analysis The DST’s rule changes tighten the INSPIRE-SHE scholarship at both ends. Students who fail or miss an exam now lose the grant entirely, and the ₹20,000 annual research mentorship award is cut to just two years from five. For a student paying for lab materials or a small project, that is the difference between doing science and just attending classes. The board-level quota shift, from applications received to examinees counted, will hurt states with fewer schools or lower exam turnout, because the pool of top-1% students will be smaller than the quota set by sheer candidate numbers. The 2025 batch, already delayed by a year, now has barely a month to apply under harsher terms, and no one yet knows whether DST will backfill the missed 2025 cycle for that earlier cohort. ## Coverage - hindustantimes.com Leads with the restriction, not the opening of applications This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Update, 10 November 2026: this story has been refreshed. Last updated 2026-11-10T07:07:39+00:00. Tags: Anindita Bhadra, DST, IISER Kolkata, INSPIRE-SHE Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/dst-tightens-inspire-she-rules-cuts-grant-to-rs-3-4-lakh/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/dst-tightens-inspire-she-rules-cuts-grant-to-rs-3-4-lakh/#story-in-brief How this brief was made: an AI model read the report linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/