India medical school exam scandal ignites attacks against Modi’s government

Protests have erupted across India over allegations of widespread cheating and corruption tainting the results of the country’s fiercely competitive national medical entrance exam.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is facing criticism for a perceived lack of oversight and integrity in the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) handling of the crucial exam, with the opposition seizing on the controversy to accuse his administration of exacerbating the country’s youth unemployment crisis.

Allegations of cheating and test leaks in the most recent National Eligibility Cum Entrance Exam Test – Undergraduate (NEET-UG) surfaced after the exam results, released on June 4, showed an unusually high number of students receiving top marks, affecting the overall benchmark for admission.

Every year, over 2 million students in India battle it out to get one of just 110,000 available spots to study medicine. Of the total seats available, around 60,000 are in state universities, with the rest in private colleges. Half the total seats are reserved for students from lower-income backgrounds.

The exam scandal has plunged hundreds of thousands of medical aspirants into career uncertainty. Students and their parents have filed dozens of court petitions alleging inconsistencies in the exam – ranging from flawed questions to widespread paper leaks.

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“The integrity of the NTA is at stake after this year’s paper leak allegations,” Vivek Pandey, an activist who has been providing students with support on their court petitions in the state of Bihar, told This Week in Asia.

According to Pandey, students and their families are demanding a swift and thorough investigation