Porter's son tops State in Arts

Standing out in board exams is no mean achievement and doing so against all odds is indeed extraordinary. There have been at least three instances of brilliance amidst adversities in this year’s II PU examination. The first one is from Raichur district. It was celebration time at Talamari in the district as the student scoring the highest marks in the II PU exam in arts stream is from this village. With a score of 574/600, Naveen, the student from Infant Jesus College, has achieved almost the impossible. His father Venkatesh is a porter at the railway station and his mother Divya Bharati is a housewife. The family has leased out two acres that it owns so as to supplement Venkatesh’s low income. The money has to not only sustain the family, but also provide for education of Naveen’s younger brother and sister, too. Naveen had scored 86 per cent in SSLC. He dreams of becoming an English professor in future. The second instance is of K V Ranjit, a student of Morarji Desai government residential school at Gollahalli in Tumkur taluk. Having scored 94 per cent in the science stream, Ranjith has topped his school in the examination. Ranjith is the son of Veereshappa and Adilakshmi from Kannenahallipalya of Hiriyur taluk in Chitradurga district. Failure of rains forced the parents, the agriculture workers, to migrate to Doddaballapur for manual labour. Ranjith wants to study medicine if he gets a government quota seat. If not, he will settle for a seat in veterinary science. Deccan Herald