'IT WAS VERY IMPORTANT FOR HIM TO GET THE DEGREE'

These PhD students submitted their theses but didn't live long enough to get degrees. Delhi University will award them posthumously.

- Atul Krishna

Rohit Gurjar had "normal dreams", according to his family. He wanted to finish his PhD, find a good job and take care of his family. However, before he could achieve those goals, the 34-year-old PhD student of Delhi University passed away in April 2021, during the peak of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, a few months after submitting his thesis.

The DU Academic Council, in a meeting held on August 3, 2022, approved a posthumous PhD for Gurjar. He was one of three DU students to receive a posthumous degree over the past year. Another PhD student, commerce department's Burhanuddin Shaik, was also claimed by the pandemic.

Gurjar had submitted his thesis on minimum-input minimum-output (MIMO) antennae eight months before he died. Shaik died just one month before the final approval of his thesis.

'Very good research student'

After earning a B.Tech in electronics and communication engineering from Hindustan College of Science and Technology, Mathura, Gurjar did his M.Tech from Jaypee University of Engineering and Technology, before enrolling as a PhD student at the Netaji Subhas University of Technology (NSUT), which was earlier Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT) and a part of Delhi University.