India’s medical entrance examination crisis is no longer about one leaked paper, one compromised centre or one criminal network. It is about the collapse of institutional credibility in a system that millions of families still treat as the country’s last remaining ladder of meritocratic mobility. The cancellation of NEET-UG 2026, after allegations that a large number of questions matched a pre-circulated “guess paper”, has revived memories of the 2024 controversy that had already shaken public faith in the examination system. What makes the latest scandal politically and institutionally damaging is not merely that another alleged leak has surfaced.

It is that this has happened after two years of investigations, reform committees, court hearings, and official assurances that the system had been secured. The National Testing Agency was originally conceived as a technocratic solution to India’s chaotic entrance examination culture. Centralised testing, standardisation, and digital oversight were projected to reduce manipulation and restore trust. Instead, the NTA has increasingly come to symbolise opacity, defensive bureaucracy, and........

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