'Daddy's boy' does it again!

After achieving top honours in CBSE two years ago, Kandarp Khandwala has now topped the Mumbai merit list for IITJEE; his father had topped SSC and HSC from his school

Two years ago, MiD DAY had carried a report about the year's CBSE topper, whiz kid Kandarp Khandwala. With his score of 98.6 per cent, Khandwala had bettered the academic feat achieved by his father 29 years ago, when he had topped in his school in SSC and HSC. (Daddy's Boy, May 27, 2009). Clearly, the youngster is not one to rest on his laurels, as has been made clear by the results to this year's Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) which were declared yesterday. Khandwala, who obtained an All-India rank of 13, has topped the Mumbai merit list this year. Ever the ambitious achiever, Khandwala, had not set his sights so 'low.'u00a0 The youngster is rather dissatisfied with his performance, as he claims that his rank would have been higher, had he not wasted a great deal of time attempting to solve the erroneous questions that appeared in the paper.


Kuch meetha ho jaaye: Kandarp Khandwala receives warm hugs from
his ecstatic parents after ranking first in Mumbai for the JEE exams.u00a0
Shubham Mehta earned the all India rank of 2 and will represent India
at the International Physics Olympiad. Pic/Santosh Nagwekar

The youngster gave full credit to the professors at the coaching institute that he went to, IITian's Pace. He said, "I had expected to score better than I did. But in the examination hall I spent too much time trying to solve problems worth 30 marks, which I later learnt had errors in them. This affected my rank. I want to take admission at IIT-B in Computer Science." Khandwala's mother Seema said, "Such is my son's brilliance that I had expected him to get a rank between 1 and 5. However, we are proud of his achievement and happy for him. Though we are both doctors by profession, we never forced our son to follow in our footsteps. We gave him full freedom to pursue his dreams."

Praveen Tyagi, MD of the training institute IITian's Pace, said, "We are happy that our student Kandarp has obtained a rank of 13 in India. He could have done better than this, but he spent more time trying to solve those tricky questions, which cost him valuable time. We are planning surprise gifts for our rank holders."
Out of the 4,68,240 candidates who appeared for JEE conducted by the seven IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) on April 10 this year, 13,602 candidates have qualified, and will seek admission for the 9,618 seats in the IITs. The aspirants will now be able to enroll themselves at the 15 IIT institutes across the country, at Bhubaneswar, Mumbai, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Mandi, Patna, Rajasthan, Ropar, Roorkee. The same exam qualifies these candidates to seek admission at IT-BHU Varanasi and ISM Dhanbad. All the 17 institutes will also admit students under the special categories OBC, SC, ST, PD, and DS, under relaxed criteria.

Immadi Prudhvi Tej who appeared for the exam from the Madras zone, topped the merit list. It has also been a good year for the female candidates. 1,08,647 girls appeared for the examination, out of which 1,491 qualified. Among those who appeared from the IIT Bombay zone, candidate Nehal Bhandari stood first, with an All India Rank of 83.u00a0The first seat allotment will made available on the web on June 21 this year. The second seat allotment will be released on July 6. Significantly, scanned images of the objective Response Sheets will be made available for the scrutiny of the candidates on the JEE website, starting May 27 this year.

Among the Mumbai girls, it was Garima Maheshwari, who achieved top honours. A student of Mithibai College, Maheshwari's All-India rank is 260. She said, "I used to enjoy myself with friends, but studies were always my first priority. I could have scored more, had I not wasted time trying to solve the erroneous questions." She wishes to gain admission into IIT Mumbai to study Electrical Engineering. Kota boy Shubham Mehta, who appeared for the exam from the IIT-B zone, achieved an All India Rank of 2. He had more than one reason to celebrate, informing MiD DAY, "I just returned from the selections for the International Physics Olympiad, which were held at Mankhurd. I have been selected to represent India in the Olympiad in Bangkok." He said, "I am eager to join IIT-Bombay. I wish to study Computer Science, as many of my teachers studied there. I have heard great things about about IIT-Bombay. I lost 16 marks because of the erroneous questions."

Top honours
>> Of the Top 100 in the merit list, 32 appeared from the Bombay zone.
>> Of the Top 500 in the merit list, 147 appeared from the Bombay zone.
>> Of the Top 1000 in the merit list, 290 appeared from the Bombay zone.