Over two million students are retaking the Public Medical Entrance Exam in India this Sunday, a month after the first session was cancelled due to massive answer leaks, sparking outrage that now demands the resignation of the Education Minister and has been accompanied by a controversial ban on the Telegram app.
"Good luck to all NEET (UG) 2026 candidates! This is the day you have prepared for. Stay calm, trust yourselves, and give your best: you have earned this moment," reads the statement from the National Testing Agency (NTA, as reported by Efe.
The public exam is taking place amidst an indefinite sit-in demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, led by the youth movement of the Cockroach Party (CJP), a political phenomenon of Generation Z that has channeled university discontent.
To contain the scandal, the central Government and the NTA deployed the country's Air Force to guard the exam, along with real-time virtual monitoring of 138,560 closed-circuit cameras in 5,440 centers and the activation of 51,311 signal jammers to combat potential electronic fraud.
The controversy has gained international attention after the Government ordered the blocking of the Telegram messaging app to allegedly prevent fraud networks operating on it and selling fake exams as the official test.
Many civil organizations, however, have pointed out that the drastic measure, upheld by the Delhi High Court and in effect until a day after the exam, is just a way to evade the real issue stemming from the education system.
According to student representatives at one of the protests, exam answers sold online can cost up to $10,500. Failure or stress caused by official exams has significantly increased the risk of suicide in the country.