Finance not a constraint

Shyam Ratan is very happy. He's been able to turn his mother's dream into reality. He has just cracked the IIT entrance exams. Shyam Ratan is the son of a private nurse. Like Shyam, Mani has also cracked IIT-JEE in spite of his financial constraints. Mani's father is a housekeeping staff in a hotel. Helping out these students is a group of dedicated teachers who don't care about tution fees when it comes to bright kids. They also provide food and boarding facilities if needed. "The contribution of a teachers in these cases is only 5 to 10 per cent," Anil Parmar, Shyam's chemistry teacher, says.

Super 30

Bihar's Super 30, which is a coaching institute in Patna, has seen 28 of its 30 students crack the Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) 2007. Pranav Prince, who is the top ranker among the Super 30 aspirants, has secured AIR 162 and his mother works as a tailor to support the family. The institute was started five years ago and had been coaching promising but socially backward and poor IIT aspirants but some of the students of well-to-do families also join the coaching. The aspirants are also provided free food and accommodation.

Baby

From being abandoned by her mother at the age of seven, brought up by a neglecting father and married to a man twice her age when she was only 13, Baby Halder has come a long way.

Her first novel, Aalo Aandhari, translated in English as A life less Ordinary, was a best-seller.

Muslim girl overcomes poverty in Surat

Seventeen-year-old Yasmin Shah Faqueer always dreamt of becoming a doctor, but had to drop out after Class 8. UNICEF has selected her to attend the Junior 8 Summit scheduled to take place in Germany from May 31. Yasmin, who lives in a slum in Surat, is one of the 74 children chosen to participate in the Summit. [Video]
(Ed. Rich Muslim kids get quota benefits in IITs/IIMs. By the way, this is Gujarat where Muslims live in fear, according to Tehelka).

Specially abled OBC girl: IAS

A handicapped OBC girl from a Haryana village has cleared her civil services. Her name is Kranti, which means revolution. And true to her name, Kranti as brought a mini revolution in her village in Haryana. She's become the first women in her district to clear the Civil Services.

OBC candidate tops UPSC

Mutyalaraju Revu, the son of a farmer from Andhra Pradesh, has topped the 2006 Civil Services Examination. Revu, a product of the IISc, Bangalore, told CNN-IBN, "It is the support of my parents and friends that got me this grand success."

Auto driver's daughter

The daughter of an auto rickshaw driver in Bangalore has topped her school and scored 95 per cent in her class X board exams. "I've always been first in school but I feel it's not enough, I should get above 98 per cent. So I should work harder," she says. Saraswati's father G Vishwanathan earns just about Rs 3,000 per month...

Scaling heights

Mastan Babu, a farmer's son from Andhra Pradesh, has climbed seven summits including Mount Everest in 172 days this year. This son of a farmer in Andhra Pradesh's Nellore district believes where there is a will, there is a way. That, he says explains his journey from IIT Kharagpur, to IIM, Calcutta to conquering the tallest summit in the world.

Farmer's son

Parida, the son of a poor farmer in Podana, bagged the third position in the Orissa medical joint entrance exam, which is just two ranks below Deepak. But the 21-year-old is fast losing hopes of ever joining a medical college because he cannot afford the cost of admission and fees.

Fighting all odds

Fighting all the odds, Deepak Das, the son of a roadside teashop owner, has topped the JEE medical entrance test in Orissa. But that may be as far as Deepak can follow his dream. He now needs Rs 20,000 for admission to a medical college and is not sure he can take it from his family.

CPMT Lucknow 2006

LUCKNOW: CPMT-2006 saw 13 OBC candidates, including one at the second place, among the top 36, in the SEE-2006 Scheduled Caste and backward class candidates topped in three out of six direct entry courses. Significantly, toppers hailing from backward class in all categories in SEE-2006 as well as in CPMT-2006 were against any kind of quota system in higher education and in centres of excellence.

Anantlal Tudu

Coming from a remote village in East Singhbhum, Anantlal secured the highest All-India Rank from Jharkhand in the IIT admission test - 50 - something that was not on his father's mind. "I knew I would make it but I was nervous about my rank," he adds, not in arrogance, but possibly not realising the gravity of his achievement.

Patwatoli

Munna Prasad is one of the four children of a poor weaver of Patwatoli in the benighted Gaya district of Bihar. ..... he cracked the IIT-JEE (rank 2,647). Then there's Tej Narayan Prasad, son of an illiterate life insurance agent and the highest rank holder (259) from the area now doing his fourth year in IIT Kanpur.

Ramanujan School

As many as 28 of 30 students have cracked the IIT entrance test from Bihar's Ramanujan School of Mathematics, 11 of them from the other backward classes (OBCs) who appeared in the general category and said reservation wasn't necessary. He claims to have worked out, by talking to friends across the country, that more than 27 per cent OBC students are already making it to the IITs and other engineering institutes.

Tea stall owner's son

Manoj Sahoo who secured the 34th rank in this year's Civil Services examination comes from a small village in Orissa. His father, 62-year-old Babaji Sahoo makes measly Rs 1,500 a month, selling tea in his thatched stall in Singhapur village. Manoj did not require the quota crutch or specialised coaching classes.

Farmer's son

Well...I'm an OBC student. And I never felt need for reservation. From a very small village of Bihar, I managed to come to the best institute in country i.e. IIT and I never needed any sort of reservation. (My father is a farmer.)

Son of a Rickshaw puller

Abhishek wants to get into IIT on merit like his elder brother, Anupam. Anupam Kumar cracked the IIT-JEE exams a year ago, long before the debate on the quota for Other Backward Classes re-started. Anupam didn't need the reservation crutch, reinstating his mother - Sudha Devi's - belief that the industrious don't need any assistance.

IIT/IIM

Lallan Singh (ex-IIT/ex-IIM): I am an OBC and don't come from an affluent background and I know that OBCs don't need quota in IITs.