JEE (Main): Nanded boy ranks third, Juhu maths whiz seventh

MUMBAI: The results of the JEE (Main) exam, the first step in the quest for a seat in the IITs and other top tech institutes in India, threw up a unique surprise on Monday. All the top six all-India rankers scored 350, forcing the CBSE to apply several tie-breakers. Finally, Andhra Pradesh’s Suraj Krishna Bhogi topped with a score 350. K V Hemant Kumar Chodipilli, also from Andhra, stood 2nd with the same score.
Parth Laturia from Maharashtra’s Nanded who had travelled to Kota to prepare for JEE came third, again with 350.Math whiz Bhaskar Gupta, with an all-India rank of 7 (score of 345), emerged the Mumbai topper. Gupta was a student at Jamnabai Narsee School till class X.

The overall cut-off for all categories slipped considerably in the 2018 JEE (Main) exam. The common rank list cut-off dropped from 81 last year to 74. Around 10,000 more students qualified this year to take the JEE (Advanced), the passport to the IITs, lowering the cut-off.
The all-India topper from Andhra Pradesh has set his eyes on IIT-Bombay. So has Bhaskar Gupta, the city topper with AIR 7. He wants to do computer science degree from IIT-B. “I am passionate about maths. I find the subject very easy as it has no theory, but only equations,” said an ecstatic Gupta, whose father is an IITian and mother a doctor.
Three Delhi students figured in the top 20. Delhi state topper, Simar Preet Saluja, bagged the 9th position with a score of 345. A student of DPS-R K Puram, Saluja was also a Delhi topper in the National Talent Search Examination conducted by the National Council of Educational Research and Technology in 2016, and the Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY) exam.
Andheri resident Avyakta Wrat from Pace Junior College, who stood 561, seemed to be among the high scorers among girls. IIT-Bombay campus resident Sai Kiran is among the state’s SC high scorers with AIR 6. “I have no plans right now. All my time is going to go in preparing the Advanced,” he said.
Atotal of 2.3 lakh candidates qualified for the Advanced exam, including 1.8 lakh boys and 50,000 girls — 22% of the total. Last year, around 2.2 lakh students had made the cut for the JEE (A). Interestingly, of this year’s total candidates slated to take the Advanced exam, 1.1 lakh (48%) are from the general category. A little more than 28% are OBC–NCL, 15% are SC and 7.5% are ST candidates. (Inputs from Shoeb Khan, Krittika Sharma and KVenkat)