NEW DELHI/CHENNAI: Rajasthan student Tanishka topped the much-awaited NEET-UG entrance exams for medical courses, results for which were announced late on Wednesday night.
In all, four candidates Tanishka, Vatsa Ashish Batra (Delhi) and Hrishikesh Nagbhushan Gangule and Rucha Pawashe (both Karnataka) had the highest score of 715 on 720 in the exam. Tanishka was declared topper through a tie-breaker. Batra, Gangule and Pawashe were ranked second, third and fourth, respectively.
Of the over 17.64 lakh who appeared for the exam, about 9.93 lakh cleared it. At 1.17 lakh, Uttar Pradesh led the chart for the maximum candidates who passed the exam, followed by Maharashtra (1.13 lakh) and Rajasthan (82,548).
From Tamil Nadu, S Thridev Vinayaka, who belongs to the OBC-NCL category, stood first, securing an all-India rank (AIR) of 30. He scored 705 marks. M Harini, a general category student, is the female topper in the state with AIR of 43, while A Subramanian made it to the top-10 list of male candidates in the PwD category.
However, the overall percentage of TN candidates clearing NEET-UG dropped by 6% this year. Of the 1,32,167 who wrote the test, only 67,787 made the cut. While 51.28% candidates passed this year, 57.43% had done so last year. In all, 1,42,894 TN students had registered but only 1,32,167 took the exam this year. Last year, 99,610 had appeared and 57,215 cleared it.
This year, 31,965 students took the test in Tamil medium. Apart from Tamil, the exam was conducted in 12 other languages. For the first time, it was also held in Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Colombo, Doha, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, Lagos, Manama, Muscat, Riyadh, Sharjah, Singapore along with Dubai and Kuwait City.