Thanks! - for listening

Sometime back I had written about the 'state-quota in NITs'. Thanks to the media, for when it was published in JAM, it did get some notice and brought me some appraisal :). But it feels great when something that you bring into the light, gets noticed and some step is taken towards it by the government. Well, I agree it won't have been just my article in JAM bringing this revolution, but I guess there's nothing wrong in claiming for your piece of cake, if you deserve some. :D

According to the corrigendum issued by the
Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India, for filling up seats in NITs
amongst the candidates declared eligible for counseling, on the basis of results of
AIEEE conducted by CBSE, the seats in the NITs shall be filled up with following
criteria:
(i) 50% of the seats in an NIT shall be filled by the eligible candidates who
have passed +2 examination from the State in which the NIT is situated. For
example, in NIT Agartala 50% seats shall be filled by the eligible
candidates who have passed their +2 examination from Tripura.
(ii) Admission in NITs for rest 50% seats would be on All India Merit basis.
For these seats candidates would be admitted from amongst All India rank
holders in AIEEE.

Although this may be a little disheartening for those guys, who still don't have NIT in their state.
But its a good news for all those crying over not getting the dream college even after excelling in AIEEE. Still 50% is to be filled by the home-state candidates, but atleast the rest 50% will be filled on purely impartial way.
Although I was shocked to hear about this news considering the fact that our HRD minister is still the one who has the credit of bringing some 'historical' changes in the admission process in India, bringing in 'quotas' and arousing people to destroy railway lines in rajasthan to get the officially coveted status of 'backward class'.
But, after this rule coming into action from this year onwards (those taking admission in july'08) ,I think the better crowd these NITs get, better is going to be their reputation. And I guess the 50% home-state quota too is on its way to make way for 100% admission on All India Merit basis. Just keep your fingers crossed, because the HRD minister is still the same!

are you listening Mr. HRD minister??

Thank god.. that obc quota is put on hold at least for one yr... a relief to all the talented aspirants of IITs , IIMs , and other govt. colleges..
but while everyone is concerned abt quota based on classes...
i want to highlight some other important quotas in some of the top institutes of our country...
as most of you might be knowing about AIEEE, all India engg. entrance exam... for admission to National institutes of Technology( NITs) and other deemed universities..
well i'm not here to comment abt that exam.. sure its a very good and reputed exam..
but what i'm trying to focus here is on the admission process that is followed after the exam..
Anyways before that i must tell u about the results of the exam ... every selected candidate is given an all - India rank(AIR) and a state rank... (ur standing in ur state)
while the private colleges and institutes like IIITs (including hyderabad, allahabad etc.) give admission on the all India rank basis...
All the NITs give admission on the basis of state ranks (SR)...
well... u may ask, so wats the big deal..
but there is a problem..
actually in these NITs there is a quota for every state like particular no. of seats in specific branch for a particular state..
50% of the total seats are reserved for the state in which that NIT is located and rest 50% is divided among rest of the states..
and here comes the difference... while a student in andhra pradesh of an AIR under 100 will have an SR of around 40 or more... and rajasthan just close to that...
a candidate from other state may have a SR under 10 at the same AIR !! (if u still can't get my point ... don't worry... continue reading..)
And the bigger problem is as ofcourse all the NITs are not of equal status ,some are of course much better than others and which aspirant would like to join...
but because of this state quota system .. he may not be able to..
to show you an example..
if u look at the statistics of yr. 2006..
the opening and closing rank for Andhra Pradesh for comp. sci. engg. in NIT trichy was AIR - 127... (only one seat for AP in comp. sci. engg.)
for delhi it was AIR - 2235...
for Tamilnadu (the state where NIT trichy is located) had an opening rank of AIR 1406 and closing rank of "AIR 7721" !!!

check it on here.

the same trend follows for other branches too..!!

now just tell me how fair is that to give admission to a student in TN at an AIR of 7000+ and NOT to a student at the same AIR from other state...!!!

while he perfectly deserves admission in a better college (which may not be located in his state)... because he performed better in the AIEEE....
his only mistake is that he did his 12th from (or he is born in) AP or rajasthan or some other state and he has to pay for it!!

will anyone come answer me for that..?
even if u support caste based quota ... then i must tell u that this is the trend in the same category (general)... the only difference is state...!!

The trend is following since these colleges had the REC (regional engg. college) status...
what i think is while converting RECs to NITs Mr. Murali manohar joshi (ex-HRD minister) might have thought of changing this state quota system in near future as his next step towards making admission process to engineering colleges easy for aspiring students...
but the present scenario is not at all going that way..
with the changed govt. and our very GREAT Mr. Arjun Singh... i have no hope to see any correction in this procedure...

i just wish if i had the right to vote for HRD minister... but unfortunately he's not from my constituency...!