IIT-JEE results: Super-30's score: 24/30

PATNA: Notwithstanding attempts to scandalize Bihar's famous Super-30, the noble initiative under which 30 poor IIT aspirants are coached free of cost by state's maths wizard Anand Kumar and his team every year, shone again with 24 of the students cracking the JEE this year.

The "achievers" include Dharmapal Yadav, son of a truck driver; Abhishek Ujjwal, son of a milk vendor; Amit Kaji, son of a marginal farmer; Arjun Singh, son of a grade IV railman; Jatinder Singh, son of a 'chaat-wallah'; Priyanka Sharma, daughter of a cellphone mechanic; Pravin Kumar Ray, son of an Army clerk; Shubham, son of a schoolteacher and fatherless Ayush Agrawal whose mother and sister eke out a living by giving tuitions in Varanasi.

With this, the total number of Super-30 students in IITs goes up to 236. Set up in 2002, Super-30 is an educational initiative under which 30 meritorious students belonging to economically backward sections are selected and provided free food and lodging and coached for a year to take what is feared by many as one of the country's toughest written tests.

In 2003, 18 of the 30 students came out with flying colours while the number of successful candidates went up to 22 the next year. In 2005, 26 of the Super-30 students made it to IITs while 28 each got through the exam in 2006 and 2007. Anand and his team experienced magic moments from 2008 to 2010 with all their 30 students making it to the list of successful candidates every year.

As Anand earned fame across the globe, certain quarters accused Super-30 of faking success and dared Anand to release the list of students prior to the declaration of the results. Anand obliged his zealous and jealous critics and released the list of students along with their roll numbers to the media three days before the results were out on Wednesday. "Super-30's success is for the world to see," Anand told TOI and modestly credited the "show" to the hard work of his students.

For Dharmapal, it's like a dream come true. The 18-year-old from obscure Rashalpur village in Vaishali district had been facing fierce odds ever since his father met with an accident four years ago. "We were caught in a vicious debt trap as we spent heavily on my father's medicare. I reared a cow and sold milk and cowdung to help my family survive," said Dharmapal, who has ranked 1307 in the OBC category.

Cellphone mechanic's daughter Priyanka travelled all the way from Ludhiana to join the Super-30. "My kinsmen were apprehensive about my safety in Bihar. But it was a safe, and successful, stay," she said as she gave a chuckle of delight.

Though a tad disappointed at the failure of six students, Anand attributed it to high cut-off. "In a first in the history of IITJEE, the cut-off was 229 this year. It was only 190 last year," he said and added that all his students would have made it had the cut-off been even 216 marks.

alokknmishra@gmail.com

Porn viewing, a favourite pastime for teens

PATNA: Among the city's teenagers, particularly boys, watching a 'blue film'—a euphemism for pornography— seems to have become a habit. Over the past few years, this furtive doing has taken over other extra-curricular activities.

On an investigative visit to different cybercafes in the city, this correspondent came across a revelation which may take parents aback.

A check of the web browsing history at a cyber café in Boring Road revealed that of the 100 web pages, 80 page titles referred to pornographic materials and porn video downloads.

Cybercafes in the city are mostly frequented by school and college-going boys and girls. Visitors, constituting boys and girls in a virtually equal number, download porn movies in their mobile phones and also store them in data cards.

Cybercafé owners have not limited themselves to allowing porn surfing to the visitors. Many have jumped on the flesh trade bandwagon as well. They provide beds, girls and also condoms to those looking for them.

During a raid on around 12-13 cybercafes in Gandhi Maidan, Kadamkuan, Kotwali and Buddha Colony police station areas on March 8, SP (City) Shivdeep Lande had found condoms and beds in a cybercafé.

Not only that, the cops had also caught 40 and odd couples in compromising position. Most of the couples were students in the age group of 16 to 18 years, belonging to well-off families.

Igniting the trend is easy accessibility of porn materials to these students. X-rated CDs and DVDs are flooding the city markets. It is alarming that children are the ones who are buying and selling them. Patna, of late, has become a major centre for the production and illegal sale of pornographic materials. Dozens of music shops are engaged in this business. "The children always want new products. And come looking for them," said a CD seller on busy Fraser Road, near Buddha Smriti Park.

About a dozen such stalls are situated around the railway station. Bakerganj, considered the city's largest electronic market, is believed to be the principal supplier of the CDs.

So high is the demand that a grocery shop near Kurji was found hoarding some of these DVDs. These shop owners display some popular CDs and then put the X-rated stuff beneath. Asked how they manage to escape the police net, he said, "The cops themselves come looking for DVDs as bribe. We gift them when they come."

In proof that flesh trade has caught up in upmarket apartments, hotels, guesthouses and in beauty parlours, Patna police had caught bar girls dancing semi-naked at a restaurant situated on Fraser Road in the night of May 8. The police had caught four girls, three bikes, one SUV and a huge cache of liquor. Earlier, such raids had also been conducted in upmarket apartments and beauty parlours, among other places.

The Patna police are up against such elements. "The police are actively working to check such elements. We will conduct raids whenever we get any tip," said Shivdeep Lande.