Bihar’s Shubham Kumar tops JEE (Advanced) with AIR-1

Patna: Bihar’s Shubham Kumar secured the All India Rank (AIR)-1 with 330 marks out of 360 in the JEE (Advanced), bringing pride to the state. Although Shubham hails from Gaya district, he appeared for the examination under the Delhi zone and prepared for the engineering exam by staying in Kota, the result of which was announced by the IIT-Rorkee late Sunday night.

Shubham’s success has drawn congratulations from across the political and social circles. Chief minister Samrat Choudhary congratulated Shubham.

In the Guwahati zone, Yashraj Singh from Assam topped the zone with an AIR of 122. He was followed by Aakarsh Naman with AIR 309, Niket Anand (AIR 319), Arnav Raj (AIR 329), and Ayushman Vats (AIR 333).

A total of 1,87,389 students had registered for JEE (Advanced) 2026, out of which 1,79,694 appeared in the examination. As many as 56,880 students qualified this year, including 10,107 girls and 44,773 boys. The number of successful candidates has increased compared to the previous year. The Madras zone recorded the highest number of qualifiers with 14,294 successful candidates, followed by the Bombay zone with 12,389 and the Delhi zone with 10,697.

The Guwahati zone had the lowest number of successful candidates at 2,883. This year too, the Delhi and Madras zones maintained their strong dominance in both overall qualifiers and top ranks. Delhi zone produced the all India topper, while the Madras zone had the maximum number of students in the top 500 list. The Guwahati zone, which covers Bihar along with states like Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim, and Tripura, witnessed a subdued performance. No candidate from this zone featured in the top 100 ranks.

Only seven students from Guwahati zone managed to secure a place in the top 500. This is similar to last year’s result in 2025, though the zone had two students in the top 100 in 2024. Despite the overall zonal performance, Bihar students continued to excel. Out of 2,883 qualifiers from the Guwahati zone, more than 900 were from Bihar.

In the top 500 ranks, the Madras zone led with 174 students, followed by the Bombay zone with 120, Delhi zone with 114, Roorkee with 46, Bhubaneswar with 23, Kanpur with 16, and Guwahati with just seven students.

19-year-old Prince Kumar Parsurampuriya of Saharsa has successfully passed the prestigious exam and brought joy to his family. The boy comes from a middle-class family. His father, Rajesh Parasurampuriya, runs a clothing store in the local market. His mother, Veena Devi, expressed her happiness over her son’s success, saying that Prince has been serious and disciplined about his studies since childhood.

Prince is the younger of two brothers. His elder brother passed the NEET last year and is currently pursuing MBBS. Interested in technical subjects, he aims to become a successful AI engineer in the future.

“I want to pursue higher education in computer science or related fields from the IIT,” the boy said. Prince has secured 21,301 rank in the general category and 5,846 rank in OBC-NCL category. Earlier, he had secured 99.99 percentile in JEE (Main) 2026 exam.

Adding to the success stories from Bihar, three students from a private school in Buxar, have secured admission to prestigious IITs. Adarsh Upadhyay achieved an AIR 5,011, Riyarth Rachit secured AIR 5,040, and Ansh Kumar Tripathi obtained AIR 5,873. All three students have been academically promising since the beginning and have been consistently recognised within the school for their talent and excellent performance, said the school director D Mohan Choubey.