India, Aug. 22 -- The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay at its convocation ceremony on Saturday awarded 620 PhDs for the 2025-26 academic year, the highest-ever among all IITs across the country.

IIT-Bombay director Shireesh Kedare said, "IIT Bombay is working to reduce PhD completion time, which is one of the reasons the number of PhD students has risen." The institute has fixed a six-year limit for the completion of PhDs, a period that may be extended to eight years in exceptional cases.

A senior professor said, "Earlier there was no deadline to complete a PhD programme. Now that we have introduced a time limit, we have warned students who had been pursuing their PhDs for 12 years that their registration could be terminated....