In line with its increased focus on India, China and Africa, the Rhodes Trust has announced the creation of a sixth Rhodes scholarship for India, a fully-funded postgraduate award which enables students from across fields to study at the University of Oxford.
The scholarship is endowed in perpetuity in partnership with the Radhakrishnan-Rajan family.
“Our current goal is to increase the number of scholarships for India to ten. But ultimately, we would love to increase it to 25,” Elizabeth Kiss, CEO, Rhodes Trust, Oxford University, told businessline.
The new Indian Rhodes scholarship was announced by Kiss on Thursday in New Delhi, attended by the Radhakrishnan-Rajan family, the United States Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, the Rhodes National Secretary for India Dhvani Mehta and Rhodes Trustee Menaka Guruswamy, per a statement.
The Trust is enormously grateful to Mukund Rajan and Soumya Rajan for their generosity and leadership in establishing this scholarship, and for the partnership of an American Rhodes Scholar and his wife, and the University of Oxford, in providing additional funding to secure its permanence, it added.
Kiss pointed out that the scholarship has been funding Indian students opting for a wide range of subjects. “The most popular in recent years among Indian Rhodes scholars has been law, public policy, and South Asian studies. But we have also had neuro science, physics and biology. And one of our new scholars who is flying to Oxford tomorrow is going to study theology”.
The Rhodes scholarships, for more than a century, have sought out exceptional young people of character from around the world and brought them to Oxford University to study, encouraging them to build bonds of friendship and to pursue lives of service, Kiss said.
“This new scholarship honours two individuals, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, one of India’s great scholars and statesmen, whose birthday is celebrated each year in India as National Teachers’ Day, and Raghavachari Govindarajan, both of whose lives have been dedicated to public service. I look forward to seeing the purposeful impact of those who take up this opportunity in the years to come, as they join our global network of Scholars who are impatient to change the world for the better,” she added.
The first selection for this new scholarship will take place next year, with the successful candidate arriving in Oxford in autumn 2026.