After Japan, Bihar's 'Super 30' now wows South Korea

Patna -  After impressing the Japanese, Bihar's 'Super 30', a free coaching centre which helps children from under-privileged backgrounds gain entry to the prestigious IITs,  has now impressed South Koreans, its founder Anand Kumar says.

"Super 30, which provides free food, stay and coaching for nearly a year to selected students from poor backgrounds to crack IIT-JEE has now become popular in South Korea. Korean youth

are getting increasingly interested in Super 30's innovative and inspiring story," Anand told IANS.

Anand said Super 30 is quite popular in South Korea after several newspapers, magazines and television channels covered his inspiring life story and the impact of his Super 30.

Thanks to Super 30, students from under-privileged families have cracked the highly competitive IIT-JEE, drawing worldwide attention. This year, the sons of a daily wage labourer, a security  guard, a grocer, a marginal farmer and a truck mechanic were among the 27 students from Super 30 who cracked IIT-JEE.

"Now a famous publishing company of South Korea, Amo Agency has expressed a desire to publish a book on Super 30. They had approached me in this connection," Anand told IANS.

The book will be published in the Korean language and will present the story of Anand's struggle and that of his bunch of Super 30 students.

Korean Radio has already broadcast the story of Anand and that of his Super 30 students several times. South Korean magazine, Cine21, recently described Anand to be as popular in India  as film stars.

Anand said that a South Korean TV channel has also planned to make a Korean language film about him and his Super 30. This is, however, not the first time any channel has shown interest in capturing Anand's pioneering initiative and story of his own struggle on camera. Earlier, Discovery Chanel had made an hour-long documentary, while Al Jazeera, Japanese channel NHK,

France 24 and various other channels also made short films on Super 30.

One of the films on Anand also won the viewers' choice award in the South Asian film festival in Los Angeles a couple of years ago. Japanese film star Norika Fujiwara had come to Patna to  shoot a film on Super 30. Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan also acknowledged Anand's contribution in the making of the film 'Aarakshan'.

Bachchan said the role he played in the film resembled Anand Kumar a lot. Film director Prakash Jha also admitted that he had invited Anand to Mumbai for teaching tips, and the video

footage was later shown to Bachchan. Now, Bollywood director Anurag Basu is also making a film based on Anand kumar's life.

Having failed to pursue his dream of studying in Cambridge due to acute financial problems, Anand set up Super 30 about 10 years ago to help poor students. Super 30 provides free

residential coaching to poor students. Under the programme, 263 students have so far made it to the IITs.