Exam row: IIT Directors to meet tomorrow

The IIT Joint Admission Board, comprising IIT Directors, will discuss the implications of the government's May 28 announcement under which aspiring candidates for IITs and other central institutes like NITs and IIITs will have to sit from 2013 under a new format of common entrance test which will also take plus-two board results into consideration.

The Board is also expected to deliberate upon the simmering discontent among the faculty of the IITs over the government's move, sources said.

The meeting has been called in the wake of IIT Delhi and Kanpur rejecting the government proposal and deciding to have separate exam. There are indications that IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur may follow their Delhi and Kanpur counterparts.

The meeting assumes significance as it will precede the special meeting of IIT Council, the highest decision-making body headed by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal and including Directors of all the 16 IITs, called on June 27 to deliberate on the controversy.

The IIT Council will discuss the situation created by the divisions among the elite educational institutions by the government proposal and the future course of action to end uncertainty among the student community, sources said.