Ritu Lakra. Ranchi1 day ago
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There were complaints of blurry appearance of copies and irregularities in checking in CBSE’s On-Screen Marking (OSM) system. After this, 17 year old student Sarthak Sidhanth from Ranchi not only complained but also exposed the system itself.
This student of class 12th (2024-26 batch) scrutinized 576 tender documents of CBSE and through a blog exposed the huge irregularities in the process of awarding the OSM contract.
The echo of this revelation of Sarthak reached the Parliament. The Standing Committee took cognizance of the matter. After this, the government had to remove CBSE Chairman Rahul Singh and Secretary Himanshu Gupta from the post.
Actually, on May 13, CBSE had released the 12th result. This time for the first time the copies were checked on the computer screen (OSM service). After the results came, many students complained about the marks, after which an investigation into the entire matter has been started.
Question: How did you realize that there was a glitch in OSM? answer: Nisarg Adhikari, himself a 12th class student, wrote about these irregularities in his blog. When Nisarg Adhikari read his entire blog post to me, I thought why CBSE has given tender to such an insecure platform? I inquired about the tenders. I did not find any tenders on the government portal, so I searched through the tender aggregator website. When research was done, irregularities were discovered. And I posted it on my blog. Question: How were your marks in 12th? How did the suspicion of low marks arise? Answer: The marks were okay, but I was a little disappointed. After this I applied for revaluation. I felt that more marks should have been given. All my friends had the same problem with their marks, everyone felt that their marks were less.
Student Sarthak Siddhant gave a presentation before the Standing Committee of Parliament.
Question: What presentation did you give before the parliamentary committee? answer: I showed in the presentation the conclusions I had drawn after reading more than 500 pages related to the tender conditions. Many irregularities were seen in the tender. He explained in detail how the company violated the terms and conditions.
Question: What was the conversation with Rahul Gandhi? answer: Asked about OSM portal. Took point-wise information about the mistakes found in the tenders. He took detailed information about how and where the irregularities had occurred.
Rahul Gandhi had met Sarthak Siddhant who exposed the OSM glitch.
Question: Did you hack the CBSE site and collect all the information? answer: No, I am an ethical hacker, have hacked many sites before. But I did not hack the CBSE site. Nisarg Adhikari, a class 12 student, hacked the site and posted it in his blog, after which my curiosity increased and I did research and collected evidence of the irregularities.
Student told parliamentary committee – 15 flaws in OSM
Cyber attack took place on the portal as soon as it opened in the morning.
Cyber attack on CBSE’s re-evaluation portal. According to CBSE, there were 15 lakh access attempts in 2 minutes, while more than 1 lakh attempts were made to access the system files without permission.
However, despite the cyber attack, the portal continued to function and by 3 pm, more than 16 thousand students had applied. This portal was to be launched from Monday.
Sarthak told the committee about the irregularities
Sarthak Siddhant presented his views before the Standing Committee of Parliament regarding the implementation of OSM system and alleged irregularities in its tender process. Sarthak Siddhant said, ‘According to my blog there are at least 15 flaws.’ After this, the Education Ministry sought a report from the Board regarding awarding the tender to COEMPT from CBSE.
Parliamentary Standing Committee Chairman Digvijay Singh said, ‘Sarthak has presented his views before the committee. Now the committee will consider the issues raised by them and the replies of CBSE.
2 students who exposed OSM glitch, both appeared for exam
The board apologized to Vedanta: Vedant Srivastava of Delhi had also given the 12th examination. When he got 65 marks in Physics, he raised his voice. When the copy was received during revaluation, the discrepancy was discovered. First he was trolled on social media. Trollers even called him a traitor, later the board admitted its mistake and apologized.
Sarthak found irregularities in the tender: Sarthak Siddhant is a 17 year old tech researcher from Ranchi. He also took the exam. He moved beyond being an ordinary student and worked as an investigative journalist/data scientist. By carefully studying and comparing the previous 576 documents issued by CBSE, irregularities in the tender were revealed.
From results to re-evaluation, what has happened till now…
13 May- CBSE declared the results of 12th board exam.
19 May- Re-evaluation portal opened to resolve post result complaints, but crashed on the very first day.
20 to 23 May- The date for taking photocopies of answer sheets was extended thrice by one day each. Students complained about answer sheet blur, high fees, site crashing.
25th May- Help was sought from two IITs of the country to repair the portal. He also worked on stopping cyber attacks. The board said- the re-evaluation portal will open on June 1.
June 1- OSM’s portal related to Revel could not open throughout the day.
2 June- The board informed that the portal has gone live. It will remain open till June 6.
