Patna:
In Bihar, Sharad Yadav of the ruling Janata Dal (United) was arrested along with hundreds of others for trying to enforce the Bharat
Bandh called by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies to protest against last week's increase in petrol prices.
But in Patna, four thousand students ignored the call for a strike to take an exam that they believe could change their lives.
At the Bankipore Girls' High School, students who have completed their high school in different parts of the country gathered for the entrance examination to what is termed the "Gateway to IIT" - Patna's famous Super-30 school. Its head, Anand Kumar, meticulously trains students to sail through the admission test for the prestigious and most-wanted Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in cities like Kanpur and Kharagpur. Every year, Mr Kumar picks 30 students to coach. This year, of Mr Kumar's 30 trainees, 26 made it into different IITs.
The Super-30 admission exam is held every year on May 31, and Mr Kumar decided the bandh would not change that tradition. Of the 4000 students scheduled to take the test this morning, barely a dozen were missing. Most students said it was not tough to get to the examination centre and that the impact of the
bandh appeared minimal.