NEET and UGC Scam | NTA is Destroying Students? (Part 1)
NEET Exam Controversy: Allegations of Irregularities and Grace Marks
This month, many things
happened to our country's students that can shake governments. But you may not
have got the details about it in the news. On May 5, a NEET exam was conducted
for 24 lakh students in more than 4,500 centers in about 600 cities. On June 4,
the day the results of Lok Sabha were released, the same day the results of
NEET were released. And these results shook millions of students. In these
results, it was found that about 1,500 students were given grace marks with
very weak logic. And 67 students had topped this exam, whereas in the last two
years, only one or two students have topped this exam. And it was found that 6
out of 67 toppers had given their exam in the same center. Coincidence? On June
13, the Education Minister told the Supreme Court that there is no evidence of
a paper leak in the NEET UG exam. Five days later, on June 18, many petitions
reached the Supreme Court, which said that the NEET exam should be cancelled
because it was not conducted properly.
Confirmation of Paper Leak and Education Minister's Shifting Stance
Do you know what
happened two days later? Bihar police arrested Anurag Yadav in the case of a
paper leak. A 22-year-old NEET aspirant who confessed that he got a leaked
question paper. "He said in a statement to the police that the leaked
question paper appeared in the exam. " And look at the state of the
system. When the Education Minister was asked why he gave a clean chit to the
NTA, he said that the media was discussing about grace marks on the first day,
not about a paper leak. Then I said that according to the information I got
there was no doubt. That is, the Education Minister is taking his decisions on
the basis of what is being discussed in the media.
Cancellation and Postponement of Multiple National-Level Exams
On the other hand,
the Indian Medical Association, whose job is to take care of students, writes a
letter where they say that they are privileged to congratulate the PM and other
ministers for the prompt response. No matter how serious the situation is,
flattery should continue. It was the great of NEET aspirants' Reddit and other
social media platforms and communities that spread the word about NEET, which
teaches us how important it is to raise our voices. But NEET UG was just a
trailer. The movie was yet to come. On 19 June, the Union Education Ministry
cancelled the UGC NET exam because they were concerned about the integrity of
the exam. Two days later, on 21 June, the CSIR UGC NET exam was cancelled. The
next day, on 22 June, the government postponed the NEET PG exam. That exam was
due on 23 June, a day later. To sum up, this month, the biggest exam in India,
the NEET UG exam has been compromised. Three other exams have either been
cancelled or postponed. The CBI inquiry has started and the chief of the
National Testing Agency has been removed. But don't get the wrong idea that
exam cancellation is a small thing.
The Impact of Exam Cancellation on Aspirants
On 17 June, Ravikanth
Verma travelled 300 km from Assam's Dima Hasao to Guwahati. Why? To take the
UGC NET Political Science exam. The next day, on 18 June, he took the exam and
went home. He said he travelled 600 km, paid for the overnight stay, came home
and slept for a while. When he woke up, his world changed. The Education
Ministry cancelled the exam because they got some information from the
Cybercrime Officials about the leak. This is why when Education Minister
Dharmendra Pradhan went to Parliament to take his oath, this happened. But
there's one thing common in all these exams. National Testing Agency. Can't our
country's agency conduct 4 big exams properly? And don't get the wrong idea
that this is the first time. In the last 7 years, in 15 states, there have been
70 cases of exam leaks. Many people are asking questions to the Coaching
Institute. The former chairman of NIOS, Prof. C. B. Sharma, asked would
coaching institutes like Physics Wallah go to the Supreme Court if their
students got a leaked paper?
Systemic Issues in Exam Conduct and the Need for Solutions
In this opinion
article, I want to talk in detail about the problematic way in which the exams
are conducted. And then I'll talk about solutions. It's important for us to
understand this. Because every time an exam is delayed or cancelled, there are
young people in our country who will waste their time to give the exam again.
So let's understand the problem from the beginning. In the blog, I'll give you
information about a 100% scholarship that a college student will get from a
college in India that is trying to create a revolution in computer engineering.
I'll tell you about the details of this scholarship in a while. On May 5, NTA
conducted NEET UG exams for MBBS and BDS courses for 24 lakh students in around
5000 centers. But as soon as the exam was concluded, a cheating incident
emerged from the Godhra district of Gujarat. Police investigations revealed
that there was a nexus between a Coaching Institute and an exam center. The
center was Jai Jalram School in Godhra's Parwari village. The students who took
NEET exams in this school were asked to fill in the OMR sheet with the answers
they were sure about. For the answers they are unsure about, the teachers of
the coaching institute would fill in the sheets when the official answer would
be released.
The Godhra Cheating Scandal: Coaching Institute Nexus
OMR sheets are
basically those sheets where you have to fill in the bubbles to give the
answers. And these sheets are checked with a scanning device. Investigations
revealed that the parents of the students paid 10 lakh rupees for this.
Fortunately, the district magistrate of Godhra got a tip and then they got the
police to investigate. "We're investigating the people based on the
evidence we got. " When the FIR was filed after the raid, the scam was
stopped at 10 am during the examination. In this case, the Gujarat police
arrested 5 people. The police arrested Parashuram Roy, the owner of the
coaching institute, Purushottam Sharma, the principal of Jai Jalram School,
Tushar Bhatt, the deputy superintendent of the NEET center, and a physics
teacher in the school. And Arif Vahora, who was working with Tushar. The paper
leak incident in Godhra is not isolated. Actually, the NTA needs more resources
and technological innovations. Take China for example. There's a national-level
college entrance test in China which is called Gaokao. At one time, there were
exam scams in China too. But today, the provinces there use AI and ML-powered
security cameras for surveillance. Such things should be in India too. And if
you want to create change in India through technology, you should join a
college that is trying to change tech education.
CBI Investigation and Observations of Malpractice in Godhra
The Gujarat police
handed over this case to the CBI. "The CBI team has reached Godhra to
investigate into the matter. " "Earlier this month, a district court
in Godhra has observed that malpractices seem to have taken place after
the NEET UG exam. " But Godhra wasn't the only place where this scam was
going on. Another scam was going on in Patna, 1500 km away. Five minutes after
the NEET exam started, Patna police got the news of a white Renault Duster.
When the police caught the car, they found three members of an organized gang
and four NEET aspirants admit cards. After questioning the gang members, they
found out that there were more people in the gang. 56-year-old engineer
Sikandar introduced the police to four more gang members. The admit cards they
found in the car revealed the identity of the students involved in the scam. A
student named Ayush Raj was actually a gang member Akhilesh's son. It was found
that Ayush was taking his NEET exam in Patna's DAV school. He told the police
that gang members took him to a play school in the Khemnichak area of Patna.
When I was in this play school, there were not 5 or 10, but 35 NEET aspirants
were present there.
The Patna Paper Leak: Organized Gang and Widespread Cheating
So why did gang
members take Ayush to this play school? Because in this play school, gang
members had given questions and answers to all 35 NEET aspirants for the NEET
exam. They were asked to remember all the answers. Basically, the NEET UG paper
was leaked. As the investigation progressed, it was found out that the families
of the students had given Rs. 25-30 lakhs to gang members to leak the paper.
And who was the kingpin of this case? Sanjeev Singh, also known as Sanjeev
Mukhiya. It was said that Sanjeev Singh leaked the paper and gave it to his
aide, Rocky. Rocky was given the responsibility to have students remember the
answers. Sanjeev comes from Nalanda district, and he has a lot of political
influence there. In fact, his wife even fought the Bihar Assembly elections in
2020. And this business of leaking papers is like Sanjeev's family business.
His son Shiv Kumar was arrested in two cases. In this year's BPSC paper leak
and in 2017's NEET UG paper leak. Now, when the Bihar police were arresting all
these people, the National Testing Agency said that the NEET UG paper wasn't
leaked. In fact, on June 13, the Education Minister himself told the Supreme
Court that there is no evidence in the NEET UG paper leak. The Bihar police
officials told The Print that the NTA did not deal with the issue with
sincerity and urgency. The Bihar police said that when they questioned the NTA
after the arrests, the NTA did not respond immediately. The police also said
that the NTA had many open leakage points, which were exploited by organized
gangs. I'll talk about these leakage points in a while. But there were many
twists in the story. When the NEET UG results were announced on June 4, it was
revealed that 67 candidates had secured the top rank. "Because a
record-breaking 67 candidates have secured All India rank 1 with a perfect
score of 720. " The fear of the paper leak grew. It was revealed that the
NTA had given grace marks to many students. In fact, 44 out of 67 toppers were
given grace marks because their answers to a basic physics question were
incorrect. The NTA said that the answer in an old textbook question was
incorrect, so they'd give the students grace marks.
Grace Marks, Exam Center Anomalies, and Political Connections
The NTA also gave grace
marks to many students because the exam centers didn't give them enough time.
The NTA used a 2018 Supreme Court judgment to decide how many grace marks
students would be given. It was revealed that in the Bahadurgarh area of
Haryana, Har Dayal Public School was an exam center where 6 out of 67 toppers
took their exams. All 6 students scored a perfect score and were given 140
grace marks. The grace marks were given because there was confusion in the exam
distribution which led to a 20-minute loss for the students. In this Har Dayal
Public School, 6 toppers scored 720 full marks. But 2 other candidates scored
718 and 719 marks. Remember that 718 and 719 marks cannot be scored according
to the official guidelines of NEET. They can only be scored when you score
grace marks. So in the same exam center, 6 toppers and 2 candidates scored 718
and 719 marks. And who's running this exam center? A family of BJP leaders.
Allegations haven't been proven yet but the correlation is very strong. On 22nd
June, a new development comes up in this NEET case. Gujarat, Bihar, and
Haryana. Now the case goes to Uttar Pradesh.
Uttar Pradesh Involvement and the "Solver Gang"
On 22nd June, UP
Police arrests Ravi Atri who's another mastermind, like Sanjeev Mukhiya. He's
the head of a gang called the Solver Gang. The gang is master at procuring exam
papers a day before the exam and then distributing the papers via Telegram.
"They operate by uploading solved question papers to students via
encrypted channels like Telegram and WhatsApp, even circulating them on the
darknet. " After Ravi's arrest, other members of the Solver Gang were also
arrested across the country. And then it's revealed that there's a connection
between Ravi Atri and Sanjeev Mukhiya. All this happened with the country's
biggest exam, NEET-UG. But the story isn't over yet. You'll get more news about
scams. On 19th June, the central government cancelled the UGC-NET exam and
handed over its investigation to the CBI. UGC-NET is another exam that the NTA
conducts for assistant professor posts in universities and colleges. But what
happened with this exam? On 18th June, this exam was conducted in OMR format.
The next day, on 19th June, the Home Ministry's threat analysis unit of the
Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center said that this exam could have been
compromised. But the Home Ministry didn't provide any details about how the
exam was compromised. They only released a press release on 19th June that the
exam was cancelled and the matter was in the hands of the CBI. The CBI found
out that two days before the exam, on 16th June, this paper was leaked on the
darknet. Darknet is basically the part of the internet that we can't access
from a normal browser like Chrome or Safari. It's used for many illegal
activities. And the same was happening with the UGC-NET exam. Because it paper
was being sold on the darknet for more than ₹5 lakhs.
UGC-NET and CSIR-UGC-NET Cancellation: Integrity Concerns and Logistical Issues
Two days later, on
21st June, the NTA said that they're cancelling another exam, the CSIR-UGC-NET
exam. It's conducted twice a year. And this exam checks the eligibility of the
junior research fellowship, PhD admission, and assistant professor positions.
Why was the CSIR-UGC-NET exam cancelled? Let me tell you exactly what the NTA
said. Unavoidable circumstances and logistical issues. No details were given
about the unavoidable circumstances and logistical issues. But my assumption is
that they might have found out a paper leak. But why should the country know
about it? We will only write unavoidable circumstances in our press releases.
On 22nd June, this news was announced. And the next day, on 23rd June, the
NEET-PG exam was to be held. But the NTA doesn't conduct this exam. The
Ministry of Health's National Board of Examination for Medical Students
conducts this exam. So NEET-UG is for undergraduate medical courses. And
NEET-PG is for postgraduate medical courses. And the Ministry of Health said
that they're postponing this exam because there have been many allegations about
the integrity of competitive exams. They said that they'll do a thorough
assessment of the exam and then decide the future date. But the exam was on
23rd June. And when was this press release released? On 22nd June at 10 p. m.
So thousands of students must have travelled so many when they got to know that
the exam was cancelled.
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