The Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana or KVPY 2021 exam was scheduled for November 07, 2021. However, on Monday, the Madras High Court ordered the postponement of the examination. The decision to postpone the examination is based on the PIL that sought the exam to be conducted in all regional languages rather than English and Hindi. The Court also sought the Centre’s response regarding the steps that have been taken to hold the examination in multiple languages.
It was the division bench chaired by Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice M Duraiswamy that passed the interim order after noting the Centre’s submission. The Centre observed that it does not have sufficient personnel to assess the answers that are in different languages. Moreover, according to the Centre, it is likely to be difficult to find a term in local languages in the case of scientific words and terminologies.
In the light of this development, the judges observed that it would not work if the Centre says that it does not have qualified assessors to evaluate the responses for the non-Hindi and non-English speaking students. Since this is a shortcoming of the Centre, the judges held that the non-English speaking aspirants should not suffer due to this. While citing an example, they said that neither Japan nor Germany is technology deficient or is lagging in the field of Science only because English is not spoken in these countries. It is further likely that common scientific words are used in a particular language. Nevertheless, it cannot be the case that just because a candidate is not proficient in a particular language, they cannot demonstrate their skills in the field of science.
The KVPY project aspires to bring out the brilliant ideas that every student has. A student from Assam or Odisha may have such ideas. However, just because they are not well-versed in Hindi or English, it shouldn’t mean that they get disqualified. The judges believed that this token scholarship of Rs 5000 amounts to recognizing the young minds and every young Indian student should have a chance to participate and showcase their talents.
It was G Thirumurugan of Ramanathapuram who filed the litigation. He mentioned that the sole objective of KVPY is to search for students who will show an aptitude for research. It will help them identify their academic potential so that they can take up research careers. Hence, conducting the examination only in Hindi and English will do injustice to the students who study in other vernacular mediums. The case is now posted before the Chennai principal bench for a subsequent hearing.
