The 2021 IIT selection test results are finally out. This batch had a lot of challenges with Covid, campus shutdown, delayed tests etc. I am super excited to report that, despite these challenges, at Dakshana Valley we had our highest success rate among our scholars. 88% of them will be offered a place at one of the IITs. The star of this batch is Rajkumar. Rajkumar is missing his left forearm. His mother (in the picture) is illiterate and works as an unskilled laborer earning $55/month. His father, also illiterate, passed away when Rajkumar was ten years old.
I am at a loss of words to even understand how his widowed mother raised him and his ten siblings (six brothers and four sisters) on $55/month. Rajkumar got an All India Rank (AIR) of 1 in the Scheduled Caste Disabled category. This is the first time ever that Dakshana has ever had any scholar get the numero uno rank in any category. Congrats to Rajkumar and his amazing mom! Many of your difficulties will be history soon. Goodbye forever to poverty.
This is Dakshana at its very best! We picked the right kid and he is now in the promised land. I don’t know how the $2000 we spent on Rajkumar could have ever been spent in a better way. Rajkumar will most likely end up with a highly coveted IIT Bombay Computer Science degree in 2025.
The awesome story of grit and determination was posted on Linkedin by Mr. Mohnish Pabrai.
Dakshana Foundation helps bright but disadvantaged students from rural India to prepare for IIT and medical entrance exams.