Identify the correct chronological sequence of the establishment of the…

Concept: A chronological-sequence item is settled by one independent fact per institution — the year a university came into existence through its founding instrument, that is, an Act passed by the legislature or, in a princely state, a ruler's firman. Establish that year separately for every name in the list, then arrange the years in ascending order. When two names fall in the same year, the convention followed by the examining authority — the date of legal assent versus the date the university actually began working — decides which of the two is placed earlier.

Application: the founding years of the five universities named in the list are as follows.

Arranging those years in ascending order gives Patna (1917), then Osmania (1918), then Rangoon (1920), then Lucknow (1921), and Annamalai (1929) at the end. In the lettering used in the list, that chronology reads (B), (A), (E), (C), (D).

Cross-check: both ends of the chain are unambiguous. Patna, at 1917, is the earliest of the five, and Annamalai, at 1929, comes a clear eight years after the next-latest of them, so any arrangement that does not begin with Patna and close with Annamalai can be set aside at once.

Contrast — the 1920-21 pair: Lucknow's founding Act was assented to on 25 November 1920, a few days before Rangoon was constituted on 1 December 1920, so a strict legal-assent reading would place Lucknow ahead of Rangoon. The accepted key, like the UGC's own record of state universities, dates Lucknow from 1921, the year it actually began teaching, and therefore places Rangoon earlier. Remember the distinction: for Indian universities, sequencing questions normally date an institution from the year it started functioning.