1. The agenda papers of the IIT Council meeting are clear that the majority view of the IIT Senates a) on the nature of the exam and especially b) when it should start (2013 or 2014) are at variance from the final decision taken. See summary of IIT Senate views (point 4 on pp 3) and the detailed resolutions of the Senates in Annexure III. pp23-31)
   1. Five of Seven IITs (including IIT Guwahati) say that the new format should not start in 2013. Only IIT Roorkee and Madras have agreed to 2013.
   2. Four of Seven IITs (IIT Roorkee, Kanpur, Delhi, Bombay) say that the 'advanced' test should be a non-MCQ subjective test for a selected set of students. IIT Kharagpur has said nothing on the nature of any of the tests. IIT Guwahati has said the first test should be an aptitude test. Only IIT Madras agrees with the proposed format.
   3. Three IITs (IIT Kanpur, Delhi, Bombay) do not want Board marks even for ranking in the screening test. IIT Kharagpur has not opined clearly on the inclusion of Board performance but says a lead time of 2 years is necessary to examine the effect of Board performance on JEE ranking. IIT Roorkee, Madras and Guwahati agreed to use Board performance for filtering out students.
   It is clear that the majority views of the Senates are:
   i) Any change in format should be first tried in 2014 and the 2013 exam should continue as is with efforts made to gather data to understand all modalities and consequences.
   ii) The advanced test be a descriptive test for a selected set of students screened by the MAIN test (and possibly Board performance) and this alone should be used to give ranks to students.
   iii) There is no clear majority view regarding inclusion of Board performance.
   
   Here are the minutes of the IIT Council meeting on 12th May 2012. In particular see the table on pp8 which records that 5 of 7 IIT senates say that for 2013 current practice should continue. 6 of 7 say Board performance should not be added to IIT ranking. How to include Board performance is not clear. At most it can be considered for screening (2/7) or cut-off (3/7), 2 of 7 are not clear.
   
   None of the majority views of the IIT Senates has been respected by the Council. And there is certainly no unanimous support for the final decision that was incorrectly represented to the IIT, NIT Councils' joint meeting on 28th May 2012 as unanimous (see below).
   
   
2. The minutes of the joint IIT-NIT Council on 28th May 2012.
   
   Notice how a consensus is manufactured in point 4 without any change in the positions of the IIT Senates. There are multiple references to strengthening school education and this is sought to be done by according due weightage to Board performance. The highly questionable premise that using Board performance for entrance exams will improve/strengthen school education is accepted without any evidence or argument. There is absolutely no reason to believe there is such a causal connection.
   In point 5, pp2 a 'unanimous consensus' emerges, where none of the IIT Directors points out that the proposal is quite different from the majority views of the IIT Senates.