DATA SOURCES POLICY

Krishnangan operates an education and career discovery platform intended to assist students, parents and other users in researching educational institutions, courses, careers, scholarships, admission opportunities and related information.

The purpose of this Policy is to:

• disclose the categories of sources from which information may be obtained;
• establish a hierarchy for source reliability;
• prescribe verification standards;
• explain how conflicting or incomplete information is handled;
• establish standards relating to freshness and academic-year relevance;
• provide transparency concerning AI-assisted data processing;
• prevent unsupported information from being represented as verified fact; and
• establish mechanisms for correction and source review.

This Policy applies to factual and structured information appearing on the Platform, including information concerning:

• universities;
• colleges;
• institutions;
• schools and faculties;
• courses;
• degrees;
• specialisations;
• careers;
• scholarships;
• entrance examinations;
• admissions;
• eligibility criteria;
• programme duration;
• mode of study;
• approved intake;
• tuition fees;
• application fees;
• other institutional charges;
• hostel fees;
• placements;
• recruiters;
• rankings;
• accreditation;
• statutory recognition;
• professional approvals;
• infrastructure and facilities;
• institutional addresses;
• contact information;
• academic calendars;
• application deadlines; and
• other education-related information.

Education-related information is frequently dependent upon an academic session or admission cycle.

Where reasonably practicable, Krishnangan shall associate time-sensitive information with an applicable period, such as:

2026–27 Academic Year

This requirement is particularly important for:

• fees;
• admission criteria;
• entrance examinations;
• application deadlines;
• intake;
• scholarships;
• counselling procedures; and
• hostel charges.

Information from different academic years shall not knowingly be combined in a manner that creates a misleading representation of current information.

Krishnangan may maintain canonical records for courses and programmes rather than duplicating substantially identical educational information for every institution.

Institution-specific information may then be associated with the relevant canonical course through structured relationships.

Such information may include:

This structure is intended to improve consistency, discovery and comparison.

Institution-specific differences shall be preserved where material.

Fees are particularly sensitive to source context.

Where available, Krishnangan shall attempt to preserve information concerning:

• academic year;
• annual or semester basis;
• total programme fee;
• tuition component;
• application fee;
• development fee;
• examination fee;
• caution deposit;
• hostel fee;
• category or quota;
• domicile;
• government or management seat;
• campus; and
• other applicable conditions.

Krishnangan shall not knowingly convert:

• semester fees into annual fees;
• annual fees into total programme fees; or
• category-specific fees into universally applicable fees

without a reliable basis for doing so.

Where a fee is expressly stated as approximate, provisional or subject to revision, that qualification should be preserved.

Course eligibility shall ordinarily be sourced on a programme-specific basis.

Eligibility may include:

• qualifying examination;
• required subjects;
• minimum marks;
• category-based relaxation;
• age requirements;
• entrance examination;
• professional requirements;
• domicile criteria; and
• other conditions.

Where no programme-specific eligibility source exists, Krishnangan shall not knowingly infer eligibility merely from similar programmes offered elsewhere.

Entrance examinations shall be associated only with programmes or admission processes for which an appropriate source supports such association.

An examination accepted for one programme shall not automatically be treated as applicable to every programme offered by an institution.

Where seat intake is displayed, Krishnangan may verify such information through:

• institutional disclosures;
• statutory approval documents;
• counselling authorities;
• professional councils;
• admission notifications; or
• other appropriate sources.

Where intake cannot be reliably verified, the relevant value may be omitted.

Krishnangan shall endeavour to distinguish among:

Institutional Recognition

Recognition applicable to the university or institution itself.

Programme Approval

Professional or statutory approval applicable to a particular programme.

Accreditation

Institutional or programme accreditation issued by an authorised accreditation body.

Ranking

An assessment conducted according to a separate ranking methodology.

These concepts shall not knowingly be treated as interchangeable.

UGC maintains public directories containing information concerning recognised higher education institutions and their classifications.

Ranking information should identify, where reasonably available:

• ranking organisation;
• year;
• category;
• rank; and
• source.

Historical rankings shall not knowingly be represented as current rankings.

If Krishnangan introduces a proprietary ranking or scoring methodology, its material methodology shall be disclosed separately.

Placement information shall preferably be obtained from:

• official placement reports;
• audited or institutional annual reports;
• official placement offices;
• statutory disclosures; or
• other verifiable institutional records.

Placement figures may relate to different cohorts, programmes or years.

Accordingly, Krishnangan may preserve information concerning:

• placement year;
• cohort;
• median package;
• average package;
• highest package;
• number of students;
• placement rate; and
• recruiter information.

Krishnangan shall not knowingly treat the highest salary package received by one student as a typical expected outcome.

Scholarship information may be obtained from:

• government scholarship portals;
• institutions;
• scholarship providers;
• foundations;
• statutory authorities; and
• authorised scholarship notifications.

Where possible, scholarship records should identify:

• provider;
• eligibility;
• amount or benefit;
• applicable courses or institutions;
• application process;
• deadline; and
• source.

Expired scholarship information may be archived or removed from active discovery.

Career-related data may be developed using:

• governmental occupational information;
• professional bodies;
• academic programme information;
• labour-market research;
• industry reports;
• recognised professional publications; and
• editorial analysis.

Salary figures, employment opportunities and labour-market trends shall be treated as indicative unless a specific source, period and methodology are provided.

Logos, campus photographs, faculty images, brochures and other media may originate from:

• institutions;
• authorised representatives;
• official websites;
• licensed media providers;
• Krishnangan's own media;
• user submissions where permitted; or
• sources otherwise lawfully usable.

Krishnangan shall endeavour to respect applicable copyright and intellectual-property rights.

The Copyright Act, 1957 provides exclusive rights in protected works while also providing statutory exceptions in specified circumstances, including certain fair-dealing uses.

Ownership of third-party logos and trademarks remains with their respective owners.

Display of a logo shall not, by itself, imply endorsement or partnership.

Krishnangan may review information appearing on third-party education portals for:

• discovery;
• comparison;
• research;
• gap identification; or
• cross-verification.

However:

Third-party education portals shall not ordinarily replace an available official source for material facts such as fees, eligibility, intake, recognition or admission requirements.

Krishnangan may independently verify, summarise or structure factual information rather than reproduce third-party editorial expression.

Krishnangan may use automated technologies for lawful purposes including:

• data import;
• classification;
• deduplication;
• normalisation;
• entity matching;
• validation;
• comparison;
• change detection;
• structured-data generation; and
• content quality control.

Automated processing shall not make an unverified source authoritative merely because information has been processed by software.

Krishnangan may use artificial intelligence systems to assist with:

• research;
• classification;
• information extraction;
• entity matching;
• summarisation;
• content drafting;
• anomaly detection;
• recommendations; and
• quality assurance.

Artificial intelligence shall be treated as a processing tool and not as an independent factual authority.

Where AI-derived information concerns a material factual statement, Krishnangan should verify the statement against an appropriate underlying source before treating it as verified.

Krishnangan may internally maintain source-provenance metadata including:

• source URL;
• document name;
• publisher;
• academic year;
• retrieval date;
• verification date;
• applicable field;
• source type;
• reviewer;
• confidence or status;
• historical value; and
• replacement source.

Not all internal provenance metadata is required to be displayed publicly.

Krishnangan may periodically review information based on:

• academic cycle;
• admission cycle;
• source changes;
• statutory notifications;
• institution updates;
• user corrections; or
• automated change detection.

Different categories of data may require different update frequencies.

For example, admission deadlines may require more frequent updates than an institution's establishment year.

Where a newer authoritative source replaces an earlier source, Krishnangan may:

• update the active record;
• retain the previous record internally;
• record an effective date;
• identify the superseding source; or
• archive the historical information.

Historical data may continue to be displayed where clearly identified as historical.

Institutions, regulators, students or other interested parties may notify Krishnangan of potentially incorrect or outdated information.

A correction request should preferably include:

• relevant URL;
• disputed value;
• proposed value;
• applicable academic year;
• supporting official source; and
• requester contact information.

Krishnangan may independently verify the request before updating information.

Payment, advertising, partnership, lead-generation arrangements or commercial relationships shall not automatically make information supplied by a partner authoritative.

Commercial partners may provide source material, but such information remains subject to applicable editorial and verification standards.

A commercial relationship shall not entitle an institution to knowingly inaccurate:

• rankings;
• fees;
• recognition;
• placement statistics;
• eligibility information; or
• other factual treatment.

Krishnangan shall endeavour not to knowingly publish materially misleading information.

India's Consumer Protection Act, 2019 establishes a statutory framework for protection of consumer interests and addressing unfair or misleading practices.

Accordingly, commercial or institutional information should not knowingly be modified so as to create a materially misleading impression for users.

Source documents may occasionally contain personal information.

Krishnangan shall not assume that information may be republished merely because it appears in a publicly accessible document.

Where personal data is processed, Krishnangan shall apply its Privacy Policy and applicable data-protection requirements.

India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 regulates processing of digital personal data, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 were notified by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology with phased commencement provisions.

Krishnangan may minimise, redact or omit unnecessary personal information.

Krishnangan shall exercise additional caution where source material concerns minors or identifiable students.

Personal information concerning students shall not be published merely for the purpose of increasing page detail unless there is an appropriate lawful and editorial basis.

The availability of information online does not automatically mean that all associated text, images, photographs, database structures or expressive content may be freely reproduced.

Krishnangan may extract, verify and independently present factual information while respecting applicable intellectual-property rights and lawful-use limitations.

The Copyright Act, 1957 defines copyright rights and statutory exceptions applicable in India.

Krishnangan may convert verified information into structured or machine-readable forms for:

• internal search;
• filtering;
• sorting;
• comparison;
• recommendation engines;
• APIs;
• structured data;
• search engines;
• answer engines;
• AI systems; and
• platform functionality.

Transformation into structured data does not alter the underlying requirement that material factual information should be supported by an appropriate source.

Krishnangan may maintain canonical entities for:

• Careers;
• Courses;
• Universities;
• Colleges;
• Scholarships; and
• related educational concepts.

Relationships may include:

and corresponding reverse discovery paths.

Canonical entity architecture is intended to reduce duplication and improve data consistency.

Krishnangan may structure information for:

• Search Engine Optimization ("SEO");
• Answer Engine Optimization ("AEO");
• Generative Engine Optimization ("GEO");
• AI Optimization ("AIO"); and
• Search Experience Optimization ("SXO").

Such optimisation shall not justify knowingly altering verified source information.

Where conflict arises between discoverability and factual accuracy, factual accuracy shall prevail.

Although Krishnangan endeavours to maintain reliable information, no database can be guaranteed to contain every institution, programme, fee, scholarship, deadline, approval or other item at all times.

Absence of information on Krishnangan shall not necessarily imply that:

• an institution does not exist;
• a course is not offered;
• a scholarship is unavailable;
• an approval does not exist; or
• an admission opportunity has closed.

Users should consult the relevant official authority before taking consequential action.

Users are encouraged to independently verify important information with the relevant university, college, regulator, scholarship provider, examination authority or government body before:

• submitting an application;
• paying fees;
• accepting admission;
• selecting a programme;
• relocating;
• submitting original documents; or
• making another significant financial or educational decision.

A source used by Krishnangan may subsequently:

• change URL;
• be removed;
• become inaccessible;
• require authentication;
• be replaced;
• expire; or
• be updated.

A broken external source URL shall not automatically establish that information was unsupported when originally verified.

Where possible, Krishnangan may replace inaccessible sources with current authoritative sources.

Educational institutions are encouraged to notify Krishnangan when material information changes.

This may include:

• fee revisions;
• programme closures;
• new programmes;
• admission deadlines;
• approvals;
• scholarships;
• placement reports;
• addresses;
• contact details; or
• other material information.

Krishnangan may display source information publicly where useful for transparency.

The format may include:

• source name;
• academic year;
• last verified date;
• official link; or
• similar source indicators.

Krishnangan is not required to display every internal research source, processing note or verification record.

This Policy shall be read together with Krishnangan's:

• Editorial Policy;
• Privacy Policy;
• Terms and Conditions;
• Disclaimer;
• Cookie Policy;
• Advertising or Sponsored Content Policy, where applicable; and
• other published policies.

In the event of conflict with applicable mandatory law, such law shall prevail.

Krishnangan may modify this Policy from time to time in response to:

• changes in law;
• regulatory developments;
• new data sources;
• platform functionality;
• new AI technologies;
• changes in verification procedures; or
• operational requirements.

The revised Policy shall apply from the date stated at the beginning of the Policy unless otherwise specified.

This Policy shall be governed and interpreted in accordance with the laws of India.

Applicable legal frameworks may include, depending upon the circumstances:

• Copyright Act, 1957;
• Consumer Protection Act, 2019;
• Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023;
• Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025; and
• other applicable statutes, rules, regulations and regulatory requirements.