Millions of students at risk: India’s elite exams hit by corruption ‘scam’
www.aljazeera.com
More than 3 million aspirants took India’s top tests for medical and research schools. Their future is now uncertain.

This shit is so crazy. A bit of an old news but I don’t know if people outside of India caught wind of this.

The National Testing Agency (NTA), an autonomous body under India’s Ministry of Education that is responsible for holding the nationwide examinations, is at the centre of these controversies over the integrity of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), a national exam for medical aspirants held last month.

There are two NEET exams, one for undergrad and one for postgrad. The former was held but the results have been scrapped. The latter has been postponed. The postponement was announced the night before the exam.

The scale of foul play is something that I have not been able to wrap my head around mostly because I have not read the news articles about this recently. There were reports of some participants getting marks that were mathematically impossible and shit like that.

“Autonomous bodies” have become an extension of the ruling party. For example, BJP uses the Election Commision to arrest opposition leaders and freeze the funds of opposition parties. I wouldn’t be surprised if the NTA was chock full of deadbeat BJP lackeys. Truly a terrible time to be an Indian right now.

  • loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.mlOPMEnglish
    5·
    5 months ago

    He wrote about this in 91 from what I know. Don’t know of other instances of him talking about this:

    Comparing India’s death rate of 12 per thousand with China’s of 7 per thousand, and applying that difference to the Indian population of 781 million in 1986, we get an estimate of excess normal mortality in India of 3.9 million per year. This implies that every eight years or so more people die in India because of its higher regular death rate than died in China in the gigantic famine of 1958–61.3

    https://academic.oup.com/book/2070/chapter/141991095

      • loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.mlOPMEnglish
        3·
        5 months ago

        It’s not India comparing itself. At least not in this instance. It’s a study by Amartya Sen et al. The rationale is explained:

        When development planning began in China after the revolution (1949) and in India after its independence (1947), both countries were starting from a very low base of economic and social achievement. The gross national product per head in each country was among the lowest in the world, hunger was widespread, the level of illiteracy remarkably high, and life expectancy at birth not far from 40 years. There were many differences between them, but the similarities were quite striking. Since then things have happened in both countries, but the two have moved along quite different routes. A comparison between the achievements of China and India is not easy, but certain contrasts do stand out sharply.