On Monday, the government of the eastern state of Jharkhand announced the cancellation of JSSC-CGL exams and all recruitment tests conducted by an outsourced agency in over the past decade — a key demand by a group of students protesting since the end of July over irregularities in the system.
The decision has now sparked another protest in the state, this time led by students who had already cleared the exam.
What led to the initial protest?
The initial trigger was the latest JPSC civil services examination, which advertised just 103 government posts. More than 2,000 candidates qualified for the next stage when the results were announced in early July.
Then, an answer sheet began circulating online that apparently showed a candidate who had passed the exam despite completing very little of it. The image went viral, prompting allegations that the results had been manipulated.
After multiple rounds of talks between protesters and the state government, Chief Minister Hemant Soren agreed to cancel the contentious exam, even though the recruitment process had reached an advanced stage, with some candidates already securing placements.
Indian politician Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday hailed the "understanding" between protesters and the state. "An understanding has been reached between the students of Jharkhand and the state government, and the students have ended their hunger strike – it was heartening to hear this news," Gandhi said in a post on X.
Gandhi's Indian National Congress is the main opposition party to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party which recently came under criticism from students over failed national-level entrance exams. The INC, which has been lobbying against Modi's BJP on education, is currently in alliance with Soren's regional ruling party.
Selected candidates fear job loss
"Tell us our crime. Don't throw us out," said one of the successful candidates who camped outside the Jharkhand Secretariat on Tuesday, Press Trust of India reported.
The new set of protesters told Indian media that they were not opposed to investigations into the alleged irregularities. But they demanded a fair opportunity to defend themselves and their placements.
The affected candidates are now calling for the exam to be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) rather than cancelled.
The Forward Seamen's Union of India (FSUI) has flagged an incident in which a commercial vessel's captain is allegedly being pressured to force its crew to transit through the "high-risk" Strait of Hormuz.
"Managers of Marshall Islands-flagged vessel AM Pioneer are pressuring the Master to force its 16 Indian crew to transit the high-risk Strait of Hormuz," the union said in a post on X. "The crew has clearly refused. They will not put their lives in danger," it added.
The post included a video in which the vessel's captain said that the company had initially directed him to transit through the strait once it was open and it was safe to navigate. "Now from last week the Company is forcing us to cross through Hormuz and go to Fujairah," he said, referring to the port city in the UAE.
"They tried to arrange one security and requested the American defence to give us air support to pass through Hormuz. The company is trying to push us through Hormuz in a crooked way and put our lives in danger," he said.
The crew "will not sail under dark conditions with communications switched off. No seafarer should risk death for owners' profits or convenience," the FSUI said, demanding immediate repatriation with full wages and dues.
The union also called on the Indian government to intervene. India's foreign ministry or shipping ministry has not publicly commented on the matter so far. India has repeatedly condemned attacks on commercial vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz and said the safety of the seafaring community is a high priority.
Indian nationals make up around 12% of the global merchant shipping workforce, leaving them especially exposed to the risks of the conflict in the Middle East.
Facing a fresh wave of criticism over botched entrance exams, India's National Testing Agency (NTA) sacked more staff and will undergo an audit in what could be one of the first steps toward widely called-for education reform.
The NTA will have to eventually submit a report to the education ministry on the corrective actions it has taken, India's Education Ministry said in a statement.
The development came a day after the NTA canceled three national entrance exams it had already conducted because of substantial errors in the question papers. Those included factual errors, translation errors, misspelled names of key figures and a host of repeated questions from previous years. The agency said students would have to retake those exams in September.
The latest announcement served as a stark reminder of the canceled medical entrance exam in May after a question paper was leaked. The controversy set the stage for nationwide protests in July that led to the resignation of former Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Opposition leaders and prominent student bodies criticized the agency for its most recent failure and renewed calls for it to be dissolved.
In response, the NTA sacked additional staff members and began reviewing internal processes and protocols to help ensure future examinations are error-free.
On Monday, India's newly appointed Education Minister Pralhad Joshi was informed that 'more than 50 staff have been removed from the NTA,' the ministry said in a post on X.
"The minister directed that strict compliance be ensured of the established exam protocols and also directed that a Complete overhaul of Confidential Operations (CONOPS) architecture, secluded rooms, air-gapped systems, device-deposit protocols be implemented on war footing," it said.
