The stories about blatant cheating and scandals involving fake toppers from Bihar are not new. But the latest example takes things to a whole new low.
An associate professor, who applied for the post of professor in the maths department of Magadh University, failed to solve a ninth-grade problem! Another candidate got the spelling of triangle wrong.
One of the biggest universities in Bihar, Magadh University, had published an advertisement to find candidates to fill a professor's vacancy in its mathematics department.
The selection committee from the university invited three applicants, all of them working as associate professors, for try-outs on Saturday only to find how incapable they were.
The selection panel was shocked to know that one of the candidates could barely solve a ninth-grade problem. Another professor-aspirant spelt "triangle" as "trangal". Fortunately, the third candidate reportedly gave satisfactory answers.
Reports say that the interactions with these three academicians have been recorded and will be produced during a meeting of the syndicate.
The vice chancellor of Magadh University, Professor Qamar Ahasan, refused to comment on the reports and said that it "would come up before the people concerned". When coaxed further, he said he was unaware of such a happening.
It was from this university, a political science professor sent a 'condolence' letter to the higher-ups recently. The letter left the readers in splits, when they realised that the professor actually wanted the university to 'condone' a break in his service.
In yet another incident, a male lecturer from a college in Aurangabad requested for "maternity leave".
Last year, Bihar's fake topper, Ruby Rai, was caught during a TV sting saying that political science was about cooking. She was only one among the 20 other students and teachers who were caught in cash-for-marks scandal.
Even this year's class XII board exam topper in humanities was unable to explain the basics about music, which was one of his subjects.
