The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also called the Shanghai Ranking, released its 2025 list in August last year. Known for being one of the toughest and most research-heavy global university rankings, the 2025 edition brought a sobering update for India’s higher education sector: for another year, no Indian university secured a spot in the global top 500.
Critics say that Indian universities have fallen behind globally because political appointments are harming critical thinking and scientific education. “India does not have a single University among the top 500 universities in the world! This is the reality of the claim of becoming Vishwaguru!,” Prashant Bhushan, public interest lawyer and activist wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Adding to it he mentioned that, “In the Modi years, our universities have been systematically degraded by forcing them to have RSS VCs, who have destroyed critical thinking & scientific temper”.
India does not have a single University among the top 500 universities in the world! This is the reality of the claim of becoming Vishwaguru!
In the Modi years, our universities have been systematically degraded by forcing them to have RSS VCs, who have destroyed critical… pic.twitter.com/rATAZOsWLY— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) January 11, 2026
This stands in contrast to other rankings like QS or Times Higher Education, where IITs often show improvement.
For 2025, top global positions look familiar. American universities still dominate, while Chinese and European universities are rapidly improving, especially in research performance.
Harvard stays #1 for the 23rd consecutive year
Harvard University has kept its #1 position for the 23rd year in a row, thanks to its strong research output and several Nobel Prize-winning faculty members. The rest of the top positions remain steady too, with Harvard, Stanford, MIT and the UK’s Cambridge and Oxford leading as usual.
A major highlight this year is the continued rise of Chinese universities. Tsinghua University and Peking University have firmly secured spots in the top 20, powered by a high number of research papers and many “Highly Cited Researchers.”
The US has 111 universities in the top 500, China has 101 and even smaller countries like Iran have entries – while India has none, according to the ARWU data.
Indian universities in QS Asia University Rankings 2026
India’s leading universities have seen a dip in the latest QS Asia University Rankings 2026, with top institutions like IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) dropping in their positions. Among the seven Indian universities that made it to the top 100, all have slipped this year, including IIT Delhi, which fell 15 places to #59.
All seven older IITs – Delhi, Bombay, Madras, Kharagpur, Kanpur, Roorkee, and Guwahati – listed in the top 150, have seen a decline compared to last year. Meanwhile, some of the newer IITs have gained ground, with IIT BHU Varanasi at #237, IIT Hyderabad at #270, and IIT Gandhinagar at #300 showing improvement.