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Super 30 founder also gets strange requests!

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Press Trust of India New Delhi
Last Updated : Jun 19 2016 | 3:22 PM IST
Anand Kumar, the founder of Super 30 which has been helping underprivileged students prepare for IIT JEE, often gets strange requests like action against a wife-beating man or saving someone wrongfully convicted of a crime.
"Almost every day, no less than 10 people come to Anand with requests of varying natures - someone's husband hits them, someone wants their children to be educated, someone has been wrongfully convicted of a crime," writes Biju Mathew in the book "Super 30: Changing the World 30 Students at a Time."
They all think Anand can help him but he is helpless. Everywhere Anand goes, youths in great number come out to hear him; to be part of the revolution in education.
"Some people think Anand is a big personality and often some poor woman would come to Anand begging him to teach her nine-year-old son. There have been also cases when a woman whose family was harassing her for dowry turned to Anand for help," Mathew writes.
The book, published by Penguin Books India, tells the story of Anand, a mathematics teacher who defied all challenges to set up one of the most successful and innovative initiatives in the world -Super 30.
Born in Gaudiya Math in Patna, Anand secured a place at Cambridge University, but couldn't attend because he had no money and sold papads in the evenings instead. He dealt with his own disappointment by setting up the innovative school in 2002 to prepare underprivileged students for the IIT JEE examination.
Super 30 has an astonishing success rate and, on average, 27 to 28 of the 30 students crack the exam every year.
After making up his mind on doing something for underprivileged children, he decided to hold an entrance exam to test their potential. Out of these, he would pick the top 30 students and prepare them for the IIT JEE free of cost. And he would house the students nearby and provide them food cooked by his mother.

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First Published: Jun 19 2016 | 3:22 PM IST

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