NTA an agency in need of a thorough examination

On May 3, 2026, twenty-two lakh seventy-nine thousand students sat for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate). Nine days later, the examination was scrapped. Investigators from the Rajasthan Special Operations Group had recovered a handwritten “guess paper” — reportedly sold at Rs. 5 lakh per copy — in which nearly all Biology and Chemistry questions matched the actual NEET paper. The Central Bureau of Investigation has been brought in. The National Testing Agency (NTA), having spent the preceding fortnight assuring students that “full security protocol” had been observed, has promised a re-examination.

The sequence is, by now, ritualised. So, regrettably, is the cause.