Minority quota in IITs on hold; ready options, students told

New Delhi: Putting the 4.5% minority sub-quota on hold till legal challenges are resolved, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) on Thursday sought to allay students’ fears and advised them to expand their choice of courses. 
    The statement came on the back of the Andhra Pradesh high court judgment scrapping the sub-quota, putting in quandary the over 300 IIT aspirants who had been shortlisted under the provision. The urgency in the case is because counselling for students is already underway. 
    IIT-JEE organizing chairman Prof G B Reddy said, “The students should expand their choices to take care of both eventualities (if the HC decision is upheld or stayed by the Supreme Court).’’ 
    While law minister Salman Khurshid has categorically said the government would approach the SC to challenge the high court order, it remains to be seen whether it will be able to get a stay. In the wake of the court order, IITs have decided to abide by the ruling, “ignoring” the quota provision till further legal developments. The statement said “the judgment of the Andhra Pradesh HC High Court will be implemented by ignoring the provision for reservation of 4.5% seats and by converting seats meant for OBC (non-creamy layer)-minority community to OBC (noncreamy layer) category”. 
    With this, about 325 candidates who had been shortlisted under the sub-quota for counseling may have to compete with the 27% OBC non-creamy layer quota.

New IIT test format draws fire

New IIT test format draws fire

IIT-Delhi Alumni May Go To Court To Stop Combined Exam - TOI 31st May 2012

New Delhi: The combined entrance test for admission to central engineering institutes, including Indian Institutes for Technology (IITs), has come under fire from the institute’s alumni and students, with the IIT Faculty Federation shooting off a letter to PM Manmohan Singh strongly opposing the move. 

IIT Delhi alumni president Somnath Bharti said they were considering legal recourse. “We are looking at legal options,’’ he said, adding that the new format would increase dependence on coaching institutes and would be subject to the varying standards of Class XII boards, bringing down the standard of the premier institute. Sources in IIT said several directors were unhappy with the decision to bring these changes but were left with little option but to comply. 

All India IIT Faculty Federation secretary A K Mittal said, “We feel cheated. Despite promising us that no steps will be taken if there is any dissent, the HRD minister has gone ahead.’’ Mittal said they had written to the PM highlighting the practical problems of introducing a new format in 2013. Five out of the seven IIT senates had opposed the move and are opposed to academic control being taken away from IIT. 

Author Chetan Bhagat, an ex-IITian, tweeted, “It makes me extremely sad to see an institution that gave me so much being destroyed by politicians.’’ Describing the decision to have a new exam as “disastrous’’, Bhagat said, “The new IIT selection rules part of government’s ‘Can’t make new A-grade institutions. Let’s destroy what we have policy.’’ 

In a sharp criticism about weightage being given to Class XII board exam, Bhagat said, “In my Class XII practicals, people who knew the teacher got full marks. Now that will count in the IIT entrance.’’

He was joined by Super 30’s Anand Kumar who said the decision would tilt against rural students. “Students who come from rural backgrounds manage to pass by studying on their own. They will not be able to compete with others,’’ he said. 

“If there can be one test for more competitive AIIMS examination, which has fewer seats and more candidates, and IIMs, why can't there be such a similar test for the IITs”, Kumar said, adding that the pressure of three tests, especially the JEE advanced that is expected to be tougher, will increase mental stress on children. 

Anand also opposed the move to introduce the new system by next year. His Super 30, set up a decade ago, has been lauded by Time magazine as the best in Asia. The institute provides free residential coaching to 30 meritorious students from the underprivileged sections of society and so far 263 students have made it to the IITs. 

Maintaining that there was uncertainty still about the mechanism of the proposed two-tier test, a worried parent Sanjiv Malhotra said if JEE-mains and JEE-advanced were held the same day, it would be psychologically draining for the students. “If the student is not able to give the test on the assigned day, he stands to lose one precious year,’’ he said.

Quota cloud over 325 who cracked IIT

New Delhi: The future of 325 IIT aspirants belonging to backward sections of minorities appears to be in limbo in the wake of the Andhra Pradesh high court striking down the 4.5% sub-quota for minorities within OBC reservation. The students, who are in the middle of the counselling process, were expected to be allotted seats by June 14. 

With around 432 seats reserved for the minority subquota, these students were assured of a college and course of their choice, but now they face the prospect of losing their seat altogether as the court decision will mean they will have to compete for the 27% OBC seats. 

Law minister Salman Khurshid on Tuesday said HRD minister Kapil Sibal had told him that the IIT admission process was not complete yet, thereby implying that quota admissions may have to be scrapped unless the superior court intervened.‘Quota candidates can move SC’ 

New Delhi: With the Andhra high court striking down the 4.5% subquota to minorities within OBC reservation, the admissions under quota may be scrapped menting on the fate of some 325 IIT aspirants belonging to backward sections of minorities, law minister Salman Khurshid said, “The selected candidates can go to Supreme Court and seek relief.” Sources in HRD ministry said they were evaluating the situation following the HC order even as Khurshid said they would move the apex court against the high court ruling.But till such time that the government moves a vacation bench of the SC, and is successful in obtaining a stay to the HC order, the future of these candidates appears bleak.In fact, sources in the IIT Joint Admission Board confirmed that the tech institutes had sought advice from the HRD ministry on the way ahead. Counseling for admission to 15 IITs and ITBHU and ISM-Dhanbad is currently underway and the process will go on till June 10. The web release of the first seat allotment will be made on June 14. The HRD ministry had asked all institutions to implement the sub-quota from January 2012. The IITs are the first to implement the government’s decision.Khurshid said the HC judgment had raised some interesting points and the Centre would challenge it in the Supreme Court. He defended giving reservation to minorities.

Formula for normalisation of 12th board scores for JEE 2013

It was decided yesterday at the meeting of senates of IIT’s, NIT’s and IIIT’s that new Joint Entrance Examination will be held from 2013, where in the IIT’s will have 50% weightage for board marks and 50% for main test for screening while shortlisting will be done through an advanced examination that will be conducted the same day, othercentrally funded institutes including IISER’s will have weightage of 40% for 12th board, 40% for main test and 30% for advanced test.

While there are so many boards including state and central that conduct 12th examinations, MHRD has given the responsibility of normalizing those scores to Indian Statistical Institute, the proposed formula for normalizing the scores across all the boards to generate percentile rank is (cl+0.5 fi)/N x 100, where cl is the count of all scores less than the score of interest, fi is the frequency of the score of interest (the number of students with the same score) and N is the number of examines in the sample.

Percentile rank and not absolute marks will be taken for weightage and rank will be given up to 9 decimal places in order to enable the tie-breaks.

Common test for IITs, engg colleges next yr

New Delhi: A common national test for admission to engineering courses across the country that takes into account class XII board exam marks will be introduced from 2013. 

All aspirants will have to give two exams — JEE main and JEE advanced — to be held on the same day. 

The aspirant’s set of scores will decide whether he or she will be eligible for admission to the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), centrally funded institutions like NIITs or IIITs or state-funded institutions. 

According to the decision taken, for the first time, the class XII examinations will count towards entrance. There will be 50 per cent weightage to the class XII examinations and the rest of the 50 per cent to the main test.

 For admission to IITs, students will be shortlisted on the basis of their cumulative score for class XII and the main test (50% weightage each). Class XII marks will then be standardized on percentile basis by a formula worked out by the Indian Statistical Institute. IITs set to have more say in JEE 

All aspirants will have to appear for a main test and an advanced test, both to be held on the same day. The top 50,000 students in the main test will have their advance papers evaluated for IIT merit positions.

The merit list will be decided on an IIT aspirant’s performance in the advanced entrance test. For students who have appeared for Class XII board in 2012, the IIT council has decided that they may be allowed to sit for the board exam again if they would like to improve their performance. 
The decision, after two years of consultations, was taken in a meeting with the joint councils of IITs, NIITs and IIITs. The All India IIT federation has submitted a dissent note at the meet continuing with their insistence that the exam be deferred till 2014 and Class XII be given a maximum of 40% weightage. HRD minister Kapil Sibal admitted “resistance” from the IIT system pointing at two concessions that have been made. The first demand of the IIT Senates and faculty federations was academic control, including paper-setting, evaluation and preparation of merit list over the exam. The faculty also wanted that main exam scores be used in addition to the board exam to shortlist eligible students. 

In turn, Sibal has managed to get the IIT council to agree to introduction of the common entrance test next year itself. 

  The minister said Haryana, Maharashtra and Gujarat had already agreed to adopt the new format. An education ministers’ meet on June 5 will be crucial to gauge interest among states who will have the freedom to decide their weightages. For admission to all centrally funded institutes like NIITs and IIITs, there would be 40% weightage for performance in Class XII (after normalization of marks), 30% weightage for main test scores and 30% for the advanced test. Sibal said IITs have, in principle, approved this format from 2015. 

Earlier, the IITs had resisted having a joint test with other institutions, following which the two tier system was evolved. The IITs though have agreed that if the formula works for the first three years, they may agree to do away with two tier system and have just one exam.

Number of Girls cracking IIT JEE doubled, no application fee for girls worked ?

Number of Girls cracking IIT JEE doubled, no application fee for girls worked ?

Female to male ratio in cracking IIT JEE has been traditionally very low, but the situation definitely seems to be improving. Of the 1,68,568 girls who have registered for IIT JEE this year, reportedly 2,886 girls cracked the exam got rank in the general category list while a total of 1,902 girls have been shortlisted for counselling.

The number of girls IIT JEE cracking this time is almost double compared to last year, IIT JEE 2011 had 1,08,653 girl candidate registrations , with 1,443 of them cracking the examination.Reportedly Piya Inala, who hails from Andhra Pradesh has scored an all India rank 21 and is the girl’s topper in IIT JEE 2012, while two other girls scored an AIR below 100

This year in a strange move to bring in more girls to IITs, IIT JEE entrance board has waived application fee for girls , though the causal relationship doesn’t make much sense, it definitely seems to have worked.

IIT Kharagpur adding 8 new departments on its 60th anniversary

IIT Kharagpur is celebrating it’s 60th anniversary this year in August and it is already getting ready to add 8 new departments to the institute, the proposal has been sent to the Ministry of Human Resources Development and very likely the institute is going to get a good amount of funding to establish at least 8 new technology departments or schools and next-gen labs to support research and development for the country.

The new technology departments proposed by the institute include:

1) Biosciences Department
2) Engineering Entrepreneurship
3) Energy Science and Engineering Department
4) Environmental Engineering Department
5) Nano science and Technology Department
6) Engineering Design and Manufacturing Department
7) Embedded Electronics Controls and Software Department

Reportedly the idea behind establishing these new schools/departments is to make country technology independent and reduce dependency on foreign research and designs for technology.

The institute will apparently construct a new complex where in all the state-of-the-art laboratories will be housed.