CALCUTTA, 7 March 2005 — A young Bengali woman has set a new record sitting her school-leaving Madhyamik examination barely 30 minutes after delivering a baby in a government hospital. Tapasi Bhadra, 18, gave birth to a healthy boy at 11.30 a.m. on Friday, in Habra. And at 12 noon she took the political science test in the hospital itself under the watchful eyes of a nurse and a Madhyamik board-appointed invigilator. The Kalibala Girls’ School student wrote her geography paper on Thursday morning. In the evening when her labour pain started, she was taken to the hospital. But before she was admitted, Tapasi pleaded with her father to convince her principal to make special arrangements so that she could take her political science test. When school Principal Sadhana Banerjee telephoned Sen at 10.45 a.m. she was told that Tapasi was already in the labor room. Soon after childbirth at 11.30, Tapasi announced that she was ready for examination. Tapasi was wheeled into a doctor’s chamber where she took the examination in the presence of a nurse and a board official. The test lasted three hours. Sen said that Tapasi managed to have a completely natural birth with no complications whatsoever. “If it wasn’t a normal delivery, she would have been in no position to achieve the remarkable feat”, he added. Today, Tapasi will take the biology test in hospital. Her mother has taken charge of the newborn so that Tapasi can concentrate on her Madhyamik examination. Doctors say that she will be released on Wednesday.