Indian officials have announced that an investigation is underway after high school exam papers were leaked in advance, meaning millions of students will have to resit their finals.
Education minister Prakash Javadekar said mathematics and economics papers were spread to students through WhatsApp prior to the exam.
“The criminals who did this won’t be spared,” he said. “I am sure police will catch these people soon. Let me assure that we will further improve the system and make it foolproof.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Cheating on exams is “common” in India, says The Guardian, with students regularly paying “large bribes”, buying test papers, or even resorting to “more elaborate ruses”. In 2015, hundreds of people were arrested in eastern Bihar state for “scaling the walls of schools and providing crib sheets and study materials to their relatives during exams”, in images shared around the world.
In May last year, school authorities came under fire for asking a student to remove her bra in public before a test to make sure she wasn’t hiding any notes.
A member of the main opposition party, Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter to use the exam leak to “revive an attack on Modi’s administration over digital security”.
Police officials investigating the leak said 25 people, including students and tutors, had been questioned so far but no arrests had been made, The Indian Express reports.
“For now, we are trying to establish the trail of this leak. Most people we have spoken with only received it on WhatsApp,” said the special commissioner of police, RP Upadhyay.
-
India's fake weddingsUnder The Radar New party trend promises all the fun of a wedding without any of the downsides
-
How China uses 'dark fleets' to circumvent trade sanctionsThe Explainer The fleets are used to smuggle goods like oil and fish
-
One year after mass protests, why are Kenyans taking to the streets again?today's big question More than 60 protesters died during demonstrations in 2024
-
China looms large over India and Pakistan's latest violenceIN THE SPOTLIGHT Beijing may not have had troops on the ground, but as South Asia's two nuclear powers bared their teeth over Kashmir, China eyed an opportunity
-
Kashmir: India and Pakistan's conflict explainedThe Explainer Tensions at boiling point in the disputed region after India launched retaliatory air strikes on its neighbour
-
India strikes Pakistan as tensions mount in Kashmirspeed read Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called it an 'act of war'
-
Kashmir: on the brink of a 'catastrophic' warTalking Point Relations between India and Pakistan are 'cratering' in the aftermath of a shocking terror attack in the disputed border region
-
What happens if tensions between India and Pakistan boil over?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION As the two nuclear-armed neighbors rattle their sabers in the wake of a terrorist attack on the contested Kashmir region, experts worry that the worst might be yet to come
