Rogue elements in education are trying to derail Modi 3.0 agenda

Early in his tenure as Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi emphasized the need to maximize governance by minimizing government procedures. Minimum government, maximum governance was his motto. Since 2014, it has been a difficult but continuous task for Prime Minister Modi in his efforts to transform the administrative structure to ensure greater accountability, transparency and expertise in the field. Since Narendra Modi is working according to a 15-year blueprint, Modi 3.0 (2024-29) has been earmarked as the period when such transformation in governance structure will become fully operational. Since beginning his third term at 7 Lok Kalyan Marg, the Prime Minister has taken several unprecedented steps, such as responding via social media to the congratulatory message sent by Taiwan's newly elected President Ching-te Lai. Although such messages had come regularly from Taipei in the past, this was the first time that the prime minister himself had publicly responded to them, while elsewhere emphasizing the need for stability and tranquility between the two sides of the strait. Or in other words, asking the CCP led by General Secretary Xi Jinping to tone down the increasing level of hawkishness in its warlike rhetoric toward Taiwan. Similarly, the Prime Minister publicly highlighted his meeting with US President Emeritus Nancy Pelosi and other members of the US Congress immediately after visiting His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala. The US Congress has meanwhile passed a Tibet bill, which only needs President Biden's signature to become law. India refused to accept the new names imposed on several Tibetan localities and stuck to the original Tibetan names.
On several occasions, Prime Minister Modi as well as Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar have spoken out on how China is pursuing an aggressive and expansionist policy in the Indo-Pacific region. At the same time, India's traditional friends like Russia have been kept on board, despite pressure from the US, UK and some other Western countries to adopt a hostile stance towards Moscow, particularly after the Kremlin launched a military invasion of eastern India. Ukraine on February 24, 2022. As president of the G20 in 2023, Prime Minister Modi secured the entry of the African Union into this exclusive club. At every expanded G7 meeting he has attended, the Prime Minister has stressed the need to devote more attention and resources to the Global South. None of this was to the liking of the CCP, which notably responded by ignoring basic courtesy by dispensing with the formality of Xi Jinping by sending a congratulatory message to Prime Minister Modi after securing a third term on June 4 2024. .
In such a tense geopolitical climate, the danger posed by dishonest actors to internal security was highlighted by the way in which dishonest actors at institutions responsible for centralized university admission testing acquired question papers for some of the university admissions exams. the most important qualifications. in India, which are conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). A few elements of the system, willing to jeopardize the future of tens of millions of young people in India for monetary gain, have caused unease and unrest within the student community to an unprecedented level.
As soon as reports of leaked question papers surfaced, the Prime Minister immediately initiated a process to establish responsibilities for such actions. Common entrance exams under NEET and those administered through NTA have replaced the old college entry routes. Due to illegal access to question papers, a few students who performed poorly in national and local exams became toppers in tests given by NEET and NTA.
Complete centralization may work in a compact country like Singapore, but not in a country as large and complex as India. A system that centralizes college admissions across the board actually makes state-level testing redundant. Several states have set an admission quota for students residing outside the state at educational institutions located within their borders. If any irregularities had been discovered there, they could have been brought to the attention of individual states rather than centralizing the selection procedure to the point of nullifying the role of state boards. The greater the centralization, the more damage a few dishonest actors can inflict on the system. Given that there are powerful external forces at work doing everything possible to cause violence and chaos across India, the Ministry of Education should have acted in accordance with Prime Minister Modi's own words to students, namely that one should not be afraid of exams. but to consider them as an indicator of their progress on the ladder of knowledge acquisition. At the same time, following the reforms introduced by the National Education Policy, procedures that allow teachers and students to benefit from greater flexibility and greater ability to overcome knowledge barriers must be put in place.
Apart from creating multiple admission pathways rather than through a single central agency such as the NTA, technology could have been leveraged more effectively to ensure foolproof methods of preparing and submitting questions. It is a fact that online preparation and distribution of questions is prone to online piracy, but this risk could be minimized by preparing and storing paper questions in selected vaults and distributing them online just before holding the various exams. testing centers. In this way, the people responsible for premature leaks within the preparation process would be few in number and therefore easier to identify. Once questions are received by each center, they could be displayed to students taking the test, reducing the risk of hackers accessing the questionnaires during the time it takes to communicate them to students and prepare them to respond. Rather than exclusivity of routes through a single agency, what is needed is a wider range of options. Everyone should ensure transparency of processes and simplification of examination procedures, both measures in line with the directives publicly expressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modis. Additionally, professions such as teaching and communications need to be respected, just like those in e-commerce or construction, so that they are seen as desirable by young people on a par with medical or engineering careers. , like countries such as Australia and Germany. Every profession is important, and this is precisely what the Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas approach promoted by Prime Minister Modi entails.
India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, has challenged the PRC's efforts to create a unipolar order in the Indo-Pacific region, in the same way that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi challenged the unipolarity efforts of the United States in the 1970s, unipolarity efforts supported by China. As a result of such a stance by Prime Minister Modi, efforts by external actors to amplify discontent and create a climate of chaos and violence in India are intensifying. Rogue actors such as those responsible for leaking NEET and NTA-related question papers are directly boosting these efforts through their actions. All government agencies, as well as civil society warning elements, must ensure that these elements are brought together and serve as an example. At the same time, examination processes need to be reconfigured in a way that ensures that rogue actors cannot wreak havoc on the lives of millions of deserving young people, so that a few dishonest elements among them take advantage.