Students are angry in Bihar. Youth are protesting on the streets amidst severe cold. The demand for cancellation of the 70th Combined Preliminary Examination of Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC), which was held on 13 December 2024, is increasing. The police have resorted to lathi charge several times to control the crowd of students. Students are also getting support from many political parties. Let us know what is the whole controversy, why are the students agitating.
- The students are demanding cancellation of the entire examination and re-conducting the examination.
- The demand of the students is that the normalization process should be made transparent and its mathematical model should be made public.
- Students have been demanding strict action against those responsible for the paper leak.
- Students are demanding action against the officials responsible for lathicharge on students.
What does BPSC have to say on the whole matter?
BPSC rejected the allegations of the students and said that the examination was conducted transparent and fair. He has appealed to the students to start preparing for the main examination. At the same time, the state government has said that if anyone has evidence of irregularities, they should submit it; The government will take appropriate action.
There are other reasons for controversy
Many students are agitating even before the preliminary examination. Students are agitating against normalization. Students allege that BPSC did not use normalization properly. Due to this, students appearing in less difficult shifts got unfair advantage and students appearing in difficult shifts suffered losses. Due to normalization, cut-off marks were affected, due to which many candidates are angry. He claimed that this process affected his selection even though his hard work and performance was better.
What is normalization in exam?
Normalization is a statistical process, which is used in examinations which are conducted in different shifts. Its main objective is to ensure that no candidate is subjected to injustice due to possible difference in the difficulty level of question papers of different shifts.
What are the benefits of normalization?
Providing equal opportunities: If the paper of one shift is difficult and that of another shift is easy, then normalization helps in balancing this difference of difficulty.
Maintaining Fairness: This process helps in making a fair comparison of the performance of all the candidates, irrespective of the shift in which they appeared for the examination.
What are the disadvantages of normalization? Why does conflict happen?
The purpose of normalization is to ensure fairness. However, sometimes not following the correct procedure becomes a cause of controversy. Difficulty is often not assessed correctly. The normalization process uses only statistical data, while aspects like individual hard work of the students and circumstances on the day of the examination are ignored. Sometimes students whose actual score is good, but due to their shift average score being high, their normalized score gets reduced. Due to which their problems increase.
Whose support are the students getting?
Along with the students who appeared in the examination, other students are also taking part in this movement. The candidates say that this process is injustice to their hard work and performance. Many student organizations are agitating on this issue. Students of organizations like AISA, ABVP are actively participating in this movement. Students are also getting support from many opposition parties. Rashtriya Janata Dal and Jan Suraj have supported the student movement. Some educational experts and coaching institutes have also come out in support of the students in this dispute. There is a lot of agitation going on regarding this controversy on social media also. Hashtags like #BPSCExamScam, #BPSCNormalization are trending on Twitter and other platforms.
What happened on Sunday?
Even on Sunday evening, students were protesting at JP Golambar Chowk regarding their demands. The police have removed these protesting students from there. To remove the students, the police first lathicharged and later sprayed water on them with water cannon. Till some time ago a large crowd of students was protesting for their demands. The protesting students were taking out a march from Gandhi Maidan to the CM residence on Sunday evening, which was stopped by the police at JP Golambar. After the lathi charge, the police have registered a case against 21 students who were protesting along with Prashant Kishore.
Chief Secretary took initiative to talk to students
The Chief Secretary of Bihar has called a delegation of five students to meet. The students say that if no conclusion is reached in the talks then they will decide tomorrow what should be the strategy going forward. Let us tell you that the students who were marching from Gandhi Maidan to CM residence wanted to meet Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and put forward their demands. Because Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is currently in Delhi. Because of this, now the Chief Secretary has called these students to meet.
Case registered against Jan Suraj’s Prashant Kishore and many others
An FIR has been registered at Gandhi Maidan police station in Patna against 21 people, including Jansuraj founder Prashant Kishore and party state president Manoj Bharti. He is accused of instigating the students and creating ruckus. 21 named and 600 to 700 unidentified people have been made accused in the FIR.
According to the officials, “The protesters took out a procession till JP Golambar without permission and blocked the road. There, they also pushed and pushed with the alert magistrates and police officials. Also, these people violated the rules issued by the administration for crowd control.” The loudspeakers installed were also damaged. Despite repeated requests by the administration, these people violated the guidelines of the administration.”
It was said that when the crowd went out of control, the leaders of Jan Suraj left the crowd near JP Golambar. They talked about sending a delegation of five people to submit a memorandum to the Chief Secretary, but due to lack of mutual consent, names of the people were not even given. To stop the students who were adamant on protest, first water cannon had to be used on them and by using mild force they were removed and the situation was normalised.
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Lathi charge on students in Patna, case registered against 21 including Prashant Kishore, 700 unknown people also named