Mumbai boy tops IIT-JEE 2008

Results of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) 2008 for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology were declared on Friday. Shitikanth from the Bombay zone is the All-India topper in the prestigious examination.

Of the 3,11,258 candidates who appeared in the examination conducted on April 13, 8,652 candidates have been declared qualified to seek admission in the 6,872 seats in IITs at Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mumbai, Roorkee and some proposed new IITs, Institute of Technology-Banaras Hindu University and Indian School of Mines University, Dhanbad.

“Consequent to the government of India issuing notification for the setting up of eight new IITs in the 11th Plan, admissions to three more new IITs in Punjab, Gujarat and Orissa, other than at Hyderabad, Patna and Rajasthan, for the academic session 2008-09 are likely to be made through JEE-2008,” said an official release.

One of the important features of this year’s result is that reservation for the Other Backward Classes has been implemented and a separate list for such candidates has been declared.

From the Delhi zone, 51, 373 candidates appeared in the exam and 1, 549 qualified for admission. Nikhil Garg has topped the Delhi zone with an All-India sixth rank.

This year 78,159 girls appeared for the JEE 2008 and 840 of them were able to crack it. The number of girl candidates qualifying the exam has increased by 43 per cent since last year.

N. Vasuki from the Madras zone has topped the list of girl candidates, having secured an All-India 14th rank.

This year, 72,116 OBC candidates appeared in JEE, of which 1,134 have qualified.

Of the 28,393 candidates from the Scheduled Castes, 690 have qualified, whereas of the 8,514 examinees from the Scheduled Tribes’ category, 159 have cleared it.

Twenty candidates with certified physical disabilities will be granted admission with relaxed norms.

The examination was conducted at more than 600 centres across the country. For the first time, a JEE centre had been opened outside India at Dubai.