Students of Bachpan playschool, Rourkela, dress up as trees, animals and forest dwellers to spread the message of environment protection and conservation. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal

Second chance

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will conduct improvement of performance exam for Class X students from July 16 to 23.

The mathematics paper is scheduled for the first day. It will be followed by bookkeeping and accountancy the following day.

The English language and literature exam will be held on July 18.

Improvement exams for science, Odia and social science are slated for July 19, July 20 and July 22, respectively.

This year, the Class X Odia question paper was full of howlers. Hindi tests will take place on July 23, the last day.

All exams will be held from 10.30am to 1.30pm.

Entrance achievers

DAV Public School (Chandrasekharpur), Bhubaneswar, recorded impressive results in the Common Law Admission Test (Clat) and National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Neet), an all-India exam conducted by the CBSE for admission to medical colleges across the country.

Students who excelled in Clat are Aditya Pattnaik (rank 114), Neelav Banerjee (971), Bagmishree (1,418), and Rubanya Nanda (2,275).

On the other hand, rank holders of Neet are Shrestha Panda (113), who had also emerged school topper in the Class XII CBSE board exams, Bimal Mohan Mallick (131), Ashis Mohapatra (200), Bishnupriya Mohapatra (226), Kirti Prakash Sahoo (454) and Siddharth Goutam (604) and Sudeshna Rout (900).

Naveen aid

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik came to the rescue of a poor Class IX student in Sutahat, Cuttack, who underwent a rare surgery at SCB Medical College and Hospital for tuberculosis in her vertebrae. Besides approving financial assistance of Rs 3 lakh from the state treatment fund for Karishma, daughter of a rickshaw puller, Naveen assured that the government would bear her medicine expenses for a year. Karishma and her father met Naveen at the secretariat on June 18. Naveen interacted with her for nearly 15 minutes. Karishma, who was unable to move during her illness, is now depending on a walker but doctors asserted that she would be back on her feet in the next few weeks.