Atul Goes to IIT
02 October 2024 | The Indian Express
For equality of opportunity to be meaningful, a person from a marginalised caste and a poor family must be able to move beyond his or her circumstances, and rise. Atul Kumar did just that, in no small part due to the arduous sacrifices of his family.
The Dalit aspirant cleared the entrance exam for IIT-Dhanbad. But it took the Supreme Court of India’s intervention to ensure he could get a seat in the prestigious college. His father, a daily wage labourer from Titora village in western Uttar Pradesh, who had studied till class 9, had to move the apex court after Atul was denied admission because he was a few minutes late in depositing the Rs 17,500 fee on the university’s online portal….