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Faced with widespread criticism of the normalization method in JEE Mains, CBSE has now claimed that due to the new pattern, representation of students from rural backgrounds as well as of girl students has shown remarkable improvement.

In 2013, there were 136 students with rural background among the top thousand rankers. In 2012, there were only 90 students from rural India. Urban student representation went down to 864 this year from 910 in 2012. Rural representation also showed gradual growth among first two, three and four thousand rank holders. Among the top 5,000 rankers, there were 861 students from rural background. In percentage terms, 17.22% students among the top 5,000 were from rural India compared to 13.4% last year. Urban representation among the top 5000 came down to 82.78% in 2013 from 86.6% last year.

Female students, CBSE figures showed, increased their presence among the toppers. This year, among the top thousand rankers, there were 136 female students, and 749 among the top 5,000 rankers. Male representation among the top thousand rankers came down to 864 (86.4%) in 2013 compared to 904 (90.4%) last year and 924 (92.4%) in 2011.

Students from government schools are also beginning to make a slow but steady presence among the top rankers. But the rate is slower. Last year, 89 government school students were in the first one thousand. In 2013, it went up to 117. In the top 5,000, there were 624 students from government school background, up from last year’s 545. Private school students continue to dominate. This year, of the first one thousand rankers, 883 students were from private schools, a marginal decline from last year’s 911.

Meanwhile, the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, which had put out a detailed story about the evolution of normalization method, removed the link from its website under pressure from the HRD ministry. But the damage was done as the link has been downloaded and is all over social media sites.

Leadership education — how far can it be taught? We all have innate leadership abilities and a capacity to lead. Through structured processes we can all enhance our level of leadership. This is part of leadership education that makes work in this area so personally rewarding. Students are seeing how they can make their best contribution in the world. To be effective, leaders must first know themselves. How do books or leadership programmes teach this? Each of us has some level of ability in leadership. What we can teach is how to enhance this capacity to lead, and the capacity to help others lead. Author Warren Bennis notes that selfknowledge is the first step in understanding. A great start to self-knowledge is to know three things: our core values, our strengths and the way we can work most effectively (e.g., how we engage with information and make decisions, whether we do our best work on a team or as a solo contributor ). This is where we begin in leadership education. These days there is more emphasis on leadership development at the undergraduate education level? Why so, given the fact that only a handful, in the world, makes it to leadership positions? The wonderful thing is that we can all lead at whatever level we are in the organisation, with whatever title we have and age that we are. We don’t need the title ‘leader’ or ‘CEO’ in order to exercise leadership. One definition of leadership according to Stephen Covey is ‘knowing what to do and doing it.’

I like to think that part of leadership is finding out where we can make our most effective contribution to the world. In these senses, we can all be leaders, some traditional and some less traditional, according to individual style. You recently conducted a workshop for class XII students titled ‘decisionmaking, persuasion and influence.’ What was the workshop feedback? The students were bright, involved and excited to learn about a subject that spanned the disciplines of management science, applied mathematics and game theory, social psychology , political science and behavioural economics. It was an entirely interdisciplinary session that used experiential learning as a means of accessing the intellectual material. How can students maximise their leadership potential? Please share a few important pointers. General advice: Know yourself and find out where you can make your most effective contribution to the planet. It is that sense of ‘detecting our mission’ that was noted by the psychoanalyst and author Viktor Frankl. Effectively using power is another important trait.

With regard to career: find the career that combines your competence, with passion and meaning. If your work doesn’t have meaning, it will be difficult to maintain your contributions over time.

The Bombay HC on Friday clarified that school boards will continue till the state legislature repeals the Maharashtra Primary Education Act.

A division bench of Justice V M Kanade and Justice K R Shriram was hearing a petition by members of a primary education school board from Pune, urging a stay on the July 1 ordinance. They said the ordinance’s preamble states that the Maharashtra Primary Education Act provisions are inconsistent with the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act provisions and the former Act has been repealed, thus dissloving school boards. The HC was informed that children’s education will suffer in absence of a caretaker body to manage primary education affairs till a new body takes over.

Petitioner’s advocates Anil Anturkar and Sugandh Deshmukh submitted that the boards can continue as per the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act and it will not affect the continuation of the school boards by the repeal ordinance. Government pleader Sandeep Shinde said the boards are dissolved by the ordinance and a n independent machinery is in place under the RTE under RTE. The HC said the boards can continue as per MMC Act. – Rosy Sequeira”This arrangement can continue till the legislature passes the appropriate act for repealing the Maharashtra Primary Education Act,” said Justice Kanade.