Modi announces panel to overhaul India’s troubled exam system

Narendra Modi’s government set up a high-powered task force led by Nandan Nilekani to review India’s exam system after cheating allegations, paper leaks and retest protests turned competitive testing into a national trust crisis. The move came as students, activists and opposition parties pressed the prime minister to show he could protect the merit system that decides university seats, public-sector jobs and professional futures for millions of young Indians.

The overhaul follows months of backlash over the cancellation of the UGC-NET exam and irregularities around the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for undergraduates, known as NEET-UG. The Central Bureau of Investigation was handed the probe into alleged NEET-UG irregularities, a step that underlined how exam scandals had moved from administrative embarrassment to a political problem for the government and the Ministry of Education.

Pressure intensified in July as opposition lawmakers disrupted parliament to back student protesters and attack education minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Protest leaders later said the government had asked for time until Saturday on their demand that Pradhan resign, a sign of how the controversy had become tied to Modi’s standing with younger voters who see exams as the gateway to upward mobility.

The protests also exposed the human cost of the crisis. On July 25, the agitation around the NEET retest was linked to the suicide of 19-year-old aspirant Sheikh Sana, a case that added grief to the anger over leaked question papers, technical glitches and repeated irregularities in the testing process. For many families, the issue is no longer only whether one exam is fair, but whether years of preparation and coaching can be wiped out by administrative failure.

The government’s answer now runs through Nilekani, whose task force is expected to examine how exams are designed, administered and monitored, with particular focus on security, technology and local exam centers. Some reports also said new legislation to deal with exam leaks would be introduced on July 27, a sign that Modi’s administration is weighing both tighter controls and a broader rewrite of the rules.

The political damage has already spread beyond one test cycle. In June 2024, opposition parties and students were attacking the government over irregularities in government-run tests, and the exam controversy has kept returning because it strikes at the promise that hard work still matters in India. For Modi, restoring confidence in the system now means rebuilding trust among students who believe the rules are being bent before they ever reach the classroom.