JEE Advance Result 2017: The Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)- Advance 2017 results were announced by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras on Sunday, June 11, 2017. Among the 1.7 lakh candidates who appeared for the entrance examination, Sarvesh Mehtani from Panchkula, Chandigarh secured the All India Rank (AIR) 1; Akshat Chugh from Pune, Maharashtra came second and Ananye Agarwal from Delhi came third. History is made when students from unconventional backgrounds create a spot for themselves among the top scorers. Pujari Adharsh and Pudari Srinivas, two students who belong to a particularly vulnerable tribal group in Adilabad, Telangana are one such example. This will be the first time when anyone belonging to a tribe that has been recognised as endangered, will be going to an engineering college, according to an Indian Express report.
Pujari Adharsh and Pudari Srinivas belong to the Kolam and Manne tribes, along with 4 other tribal students of the Gond and Lambada communities have cleared IIT-JEE. The other 4 who have qualified the exam are- Perka Chitru (Gond), Keram Nagamani (Pardhani), and Badhavath Rejender and Jhadav Niranjan (Lambada).
IPS officer and secretary, Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society, Dr Praveen Kumar while expressing delight over the news said, “It is a great achievement this year for students of the marginalised communities.” He added, “Boys and girls from tribes facing extinction have qualified for IITs. In these tribal families, even two meals a day is a luxury. But given an opportunity to study, they excelled.”
R V Karnan, the Mancherial district collector and project officer at Integrated Tribal Development Authority said, “Some of the brightest kids among these tribals were chosen and given special coaching for nearly six months. The IIT coaching project is called Star-30 under which 30 students are selected from various Tribal Welfare Residential Colleges and given rigorous coaching,” as quoted in the report.