Madhyamik result leaked!

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, May 30, 2007

Surprise, surprise, though the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education was supposed to announce the Madhyamik results at a news conference after 4 pm, several TV channels jumped the gun and aired interviews with probable toppers from the morning. The results were uploaded on websites at 5.30 pm.
Going through the marks of 6,58,914 students and anointing toppers is virtually impossible before the results are published on the web or the mark sheets reach the schools. Mark sheets are meant to be confidential documents before the results are declared. Nowhere in India does a section of the media take interviews of toppers, even before the results are declared.
The school education minister, Partha De, has been appalled by the act. “This is strange. How can a section of the electronic media take interviews of the toppers even before the results have been declared. If the marks declared by some channels tallies with the official version, then we may launch a probe,” De said. Various teachers’ organisation have lodged a protest with the school education minister.
It is clear that the channels, which have aired the interviews, had access to the results, which cannot happen without the help of an insider. Questions have now risen whether the president of the board, Ujjal Basu, will resign? “I will think about it only after the results flashed by the electronic media, tallies with the real marks,” Basu said.
Basu however rubbished such claims and equated the release of early results by the channels with exit polls during elections. “These are just like exit polls, some will match, while most will be different. To the best of my knowledge, no one had access to the results before it was published,” said Basu. However, he refused to comment how the students or the channels could know the total marks even before the board had published the results. Basu said, “I cannot take the responsibility for some media houses that aired the interviews before the results were published. They should be quizzed, not us.”
Last year too the probable toppers were interviewed by some section of electronic media even before the results were announced. However, the board refused to term it as a leak, because the results were faxed to districts much before the schedule time. But this year nothing such has happened and the board does not know what reason to give.mou.hindustantimes@yahoo.com