UP, United Kingdom Collaborate To Offer Chevening Scholarship To 5 Students Every Year
Chevening Scholarship: To qualify for the scholarship, a student must hold an undergraduate degree suitable for a master's programme in the UK.
The United Kingdom and Uttar Pradesh signed the Chevening scholarship agreement on Tuesday, enabling five students each year to study in the UK with a fully funded scholarship. The agreement was signed during a courtesy visit by British High Commissioner to India, Lindy Cameron, to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow.
The British High Commissioner expressed confidence in the strengthening relations between the UK and India, mentioning the recently signed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and Vision 35 as catalysts for numerous business opportunities.
'It's wonderful to be here in Lucknow today to sign with the Chief Minister the agreement on the new Chevening scholarships which we're announcing together between the United Kingdom and Uttar Pradesh. This will give the opportunity for five students every year for the next three years to go to the UK on a fully funded scholarship which is part of the fantastic and growing relationship between the United Kingdom and India," the High Commissioner Cameron told ANI after the meeting.
Chevening is the UK Government's international scholarships programme, funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and partner organisations, offering individuals the chance to further their education in the UK.
To qualify for the scholarship, a student must hold an undergraduate degree suitable for a master's programme in the UK. Applicants must apply to three eligible courses in the UK and receive an unconditional offer from at least one.
Once selected, recipients will have their university tuition funded, receive a monthly stipend, a travel allowance to and from the UK, and an arrival allowance.
The cost of one visa application will be covered, and a travel grant will be provided to attend Chevening events in the UK. The application process for 2026-27 is currently open and will conclude on October 7.
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Newly declassified British intelligence files have confirmed coordinated CIA-UK operations with Congress leaders that led to the downfall of Kerala's 1959 Communist government. EMS Namboodiripad. On July 31, 1959, the Nehru Government invoked Article 356 of the Constitution to dismiss a state government for the first time against a non-Congress administration. E.M.S. Namboodiripad, who had served as Kerala's chief minister from April 5, 1957, saw his Communist-led government terminated after 27 months in power. What followed was not just a change of government, but a constitutional precedent that would haunt Indian federalism for decades. For 65 years, the story of this dismissal has been contested territory. To supporters of the Vimochana Samaram (Liberation Struggle), the mass agitation that culminated in the dismissal represented a popular uprising against Communist overreach. 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The trained operatives were then "infiltrated into the Indian National Trade Union Congress," bolstering its ability to counter CPI-aligned unions. This created what McGarr describes as sustained political pressure that complemented CIA funding efforts. "The people of India have the right to know the truth about the 1959 dismissal of Kerala's first Communist government. I believe that much is still remaining hidden about the Vimochana Samaram, which was shaped not only by local politics but also by external interventions that influenced the course of democracy in postcolonial India. The newly revealed UK involvement is almost unbelievable, but surprisingly new," observed eminent political scientist G. Gopakumar. Ballot box Communists The undivided CPI's electoral victory in Kerala in 1957 created one of the earliest democratically elected Communist governments in the world. It was only the second revolutionary government ever elected democratically, after communist success in San Marino from 1945 to 1957. This democratic path to socialism sent ripples across the Cold War world, where the ideological battle between capitalism and communism typically played out through revolution or military intervention, not electoral politics. In Washington and London, policymakers watched apprehensively as Namboodiripad's government began implementing the radical reforms that had brought it to power. The Communist government's troubles began with its very success in implementing promised reforms. The Kerala Education Bill of 1957, piloted by state education minister Joseph Mundassery, aimed to bring the state's schools under tighter government regulation. The legislation required that teacher appointments in grant-aided private schools – many run by Christian churches and caste organisations – be made from government-approved lists. For the powerful Syrian Catholic Church and organisations like the Nair Service Society, these reforms represented an existential threat to decades-old control over education and patronage networks. The changes would have significantly affected the livelihoods and autonomy of thousands of teachers while reducing the influence of religious and community organisations over educational institutions. Even more explosive were the agrarian reforms championed by revenue minister K.R. Gouri. The legislation sought to confer ownership rights to long-term tenant cultivators, fix ceilings on landholdings, and prevent arbitrary eviction of tenants. For the landed elites – particularly the Nair and Syrian Christian communities who had dominated Kerala's rural economy for generations – these reforms were unacceptable. The gathering storm Opposition to the EMS government began coalescing almost immediately after the bills were introduced. The Syrian Catholic Church mobilised its considerable resources against the education bill, with Church leaders framing the legislation as an attack on religious freedom and minority rights. Simultaneously, the Nair Service Society, under Mannathu Padmanabhan's leadership, began organising against the land reforms. The Indian National Congress, smarting from its electoral defeat, provided political coordination for what would become a formidable opposition coalition. The protests, initially peaceful, gradually escalated. The turning point came on June 13, 1959, at Angamaly, where police firing on protesters resulted in seven deaths. Similar incidents followed across the state, creating a cycle of violence and political mobilisation that would ultimately provide the justification for central intervention. Evidence of foreign involvement The question of foreign involvement in the Vimochana Samaram has been the subject of scholarly investigation for decades. CIA funding of the Congress party has been documented on multiple occasions. The most significant admission came from Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who served as US Ambassador to India in the 1970s. In his memoir A Dangerous Place, Moynihan revealed that the CIA had secretly funded the Indian National Congress on multiple occasions, including operations targeting Kerala's Communist government. "In the 1950s, as the role of world policeman shifted from Britain to the United States, the CIA overthrew several democratically elected governments in the Third World, often with extreme bloodshed,' explains Thomas Isaac, CPIM leader and Kerala's former finance minister. Yet in former British colonies like British Guiana, India, and Iran, it was still British intelligence that held sway in the early years. The coup in British Guiana was initiated by Britain itself. 'Now, for the first time, concrete records reveal Britain's interventions in Kerala—until now known only through the memoirs of B.N. Mullik, then head of India's Intelligence Bureau," says Issac who co-authored the book Toppling the First Ministry: Kerala, the CIA, and the Struggle for Social Justice, along with Richard W. Franke. While the CIA's role in funnelling money to Congress politicians and anti-communist trade unions has been hinted at in past memoirs and research, McGarr's work adds detailed evidence of Britain's parallel campaign. The Cold War context Understanding the foreign dimension requires recognising Kerala's significance in Cold War calculations. A democratically elected Communist government in an Indian state represented a dangerous precedent from the perspective of Western policymakers who saw containment of Communism as a strategic imperative. Internal CIA documents, some later declassified, show the extraordinary level of attention Kerala commanded in Washington's intelligence apparatus. 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