Indian public examination reform proposals follow education minister’s resignation after nationwide youth protests

India’s federal government introduced legislation in parliament on Monday to amend the law governing public examinations, days after the “Cockroach” movement forced the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan following nationwide youth protests.

The bill incorporates enhanced sanctions, including longer prison sentences and higher fines for those found responsible for exam leaks and irregularities.

The demonstrations are widely viewed as the most significant youth-led challenge faced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he took office in 2014.

What triggered the protests?

Nearly 2 million students took the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), an undergraduate medical entrance examination, in May. The federal National Testing Agency cancelled the exam on May 12 following allegations that question papers had been leaked. The examination was re-administered on June 21.

Young people took to the streets to protest against examination fraud, youth unemployment, and a perceived lack of future prospects.

According to a BBC report, the unemployment rate among university and college graduates aged 15 to 25 in the country stands at a critically high level of 40%. The addition of corruption in public examinations to existing economic strain broke the patience of the youth.

Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Public Party (CJP) movement, led the protests.

The movement derived its name from remarks made in May by Supreme Court Judge Surya Kant, who used the terms “cockroach” and “parasite” in a derogatory reference to unemployed youth and protesters. Young demonstrators adopted the insult as a symbol and named their movement after it.

How the movement unfolded

Young protesters organized street demonstrations demanding the resignation of Education Minister Pradhan. Dipke, who initiated the movement in New Delhi, subsequently organized protests in other parts of the country.

Sonam Wangchuk, one of the protesters, began a hunger strike at the demonstration site in support of the movement. As his physical condition deteriorated, authorities forcibly transferred him to a hospital.

The reaction to Wangchuk’s forcible removal from the protest site caused crowds at the venue to expand rapidly.

Tens of thousands of protesters faced tear gas and baton charges by police while attempting to march on parliament. Some demonstrators engaged in clashes with law enforcement officers.

CJP leaders held talks with ministers from the Modi government, who requested time to evaluate the protesters’ demands internally.

Modi called for unity among lawmakers in the ruling coalition to implement strict measures against exam paper leaks, punish those responsible, and establish a secure, leak-proof system.

Opposition representatives led by Rahul Gandhi staged a sit-in at the entrance of Modi’s official residence demanding Pradhan’s resignation. They were briefly detained by police before being released.

Opposition lawmakers supporting the student protesters disrupted proceedings in parliament. Demonstrations expanded to other regions of the country, including the financial hub of Mumbai.

In his first direct statement regarding the protests, published in a post on X, Modi announced that special courts would be established to prosecute individuals involved in exam paper leaks. Protesters rejected the proposal.

Movement leaders held a second round of talks with the government after Wangchuk ended his 26-day hunger strike.

Following those discussions, the government requested time until the afternoon of the following day to respond to the demand for Pradhan’s resignation.

Education Minister Pradhan subsequently announced his resignation, stating that he was stepping down in light of the situation at the protest site and across the country, as well as to prevent “external forces” from exploiting the environment.

On July 26, Modi announced the creation of a task force headed by technology entrepreneur Nandan Nilekani to overhaul the country’s examination system.

On Monday, July 27, the government presented a bill to parliament proposing amendments to the law governing public examinations. The legislation introduces stiffer penalties for offenders, including extended prison terms and increased monetary fines.

DeepSeek, the China-based startup developing artificial intelligence models, has begun preparations for an initial public offering (IPO).

According to a Bloomberg report citing sources familiar with the matter, the company plans to file its IPO application either this year or early next year.

The sources noted that the filing timeline will depend on the readiness of the company’s financial reports, with DeepSeek projected to go public on a mainland Chinese stock exchange in 2027.

Prior to the IPO, DeepSeek also aims to conduct a new funding round. In this second investment round, the company reportedly plans to raise at least 10 billion yuan (approximately $1.48 billion), a process expected to push its market valuation to at least 480 billion yuan (approximately $71 billion).

The AI startup, which secured $7.4 billion in its first funding round, saw its market valuation exceed $50 billion, rendering DeepSeek the most valuable artificial intelligence company in China.

The company’s founder, Liang Wenfeng, personally invested $3 billion of his own capital into the DeepSeek project. According to data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Liang’s stake in the company fell from 90% to 78% following the latest investment round.

Despite this decline, Liang’s personal wealth more than doubled, rising from $16.7 billion to approximately $36 billion.

This surge has positioned Liang as the wealthiest founder of an AI model-developing company in the world.

According to earlier reports by Reuters, the investment round was structured under an unusual partnership model that allows founder Liang Wenfeng to maintain administrative control over the company.

Under this framework, which requires investors to provide funds to a limited liability partnership managed by the company’s general manager rather than investing directly in DeepSeek, backers are not granted voting rights. Furthermore, the provided funds are locked and cannot be withdrawn for a period of five years.

The China National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund was the sole institution exempted from these strict rules, investing approximately $150 million directly into DeepSeek.

Based in Hangzhou, China, DeepSeek was founded by Liang Wenfeng in 2023.

The company was structured as a unit within Zhejiang High-Flyer Asset Management, a hedge fund specializing in artificial intelligence that Liang launched alongside two former university classmates.

In early 2025, DeepSeek released a new artificial intelligence model offering performance comparable to US rivals such as OpenAI, but at a significantly lower operating cost.

Following these developments, founder Liang Wenfeng stated that the company will continue to develop open-source artificial intelligence models, emphasizing that their ultimate global objective is to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Western efforts to reduce reliance on China across strategic supply chains could cost the US, the eurozone, and the UK more than $23 trillion over the next quarter-century, according to a study highlighting the immense economic challenge confronting Western policymakers.

Economic analysis indicates that European and US authorities and corporations will need to invest an additional $23.6 trillion over the next 25 years to successfully end their dependence on China in critical sectors such as manufacturing and technology.

The consultancy EY-Parthenon calculated that rebuilding infrastructure, research, software, manufacturing, and supply chains currently reliant on China will cost the US $13.7 trillion, the eurozone $9.1 trillion, and the UK $800 billion by 2050.

For the US, the required annual capital expenditure from the government and private sector to decouple from China is estimated at $550 billion. This sum is roughly equivalent to the $600 billion major US technology companies are projected to invest in data centers in 2025. For the EU, EY-Parthenon estimated that the necessary spending would require nearly doubling the bloc’s annual budget.

The scale of investment required to substitute Chinese resources and materials, on which advanced economies are currently dependent, underscores the formidable challenge Western governments face as they attempt to curb Beijing’s dominance in strategic supply chains.

“Localizing supply chains without creating unbearable costs for taxpayers and consumers will be one of the most difficult challenges confronting both companies and governments in the coming years,” said Mats Persson, a former UK Prime Minister’s adviser who is now a partner at EY-Parthenon.

EY-Parthenon analysts wrote that an average collective additional investment of $940 billion annually over 25 years was, in theory, “not insurmountable.” However, this expenditure would need to be made on top of existing investments in energy, technology, defense, and infrastructure. Persson noted that initial annual outlays would start lower but would escalate as the transition expanded.

The vulnerability of European and US economies to Chinese leverage was exposed last year when Beijing introduced export controls on critical rare earth metals in response to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 145% tariff on Chinese imports.

Automotive production lines in both economies ground to a near-standstill before a truce was reached between Beijing and Washington. The disruption accelerated efforts by the US and Europe to de-risk their relations with China, which included an EU plan to stockpile rare earth elements.

According to assessments by the International Energy Agency, China is projected to supply more than 60% of the world’s refined lithium and cobalt—materials vital to the transition to cleaner energy sources—and approximately 80% of battery-grade graphite and rare earth elements until 2035.

Alicia García-Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at the investment bank Natixis, said that Beijing’s tight grip on many critical industrial materials meant the West could not decouple from China in the short term, even with massive investment.

“It is not just a question of how much it will cost,” García-Herrero said. “It is also China’s capacity to intervene to block such decoupling, given its current control over supply in everything from rare earth processing to active pharmaceutical ingredients.”

According to the EY-Parthenon analysis, Chinese-made goods generally benefit from a factory-gate price advantage of between 20% and 100% compared to Western competitors. Consequently, reducing dependence on Chinese manufacturing is expected to drive up prices and increase inflation.

The EY-Parthenon report noted that Europe cutting its reliance on China could raise prices in critical sectors by 1% to 2.5%. Citing an analysis by the European Central Bank, the report warned this could cause inflation rates to remain permanently above the 2% targets set by the European Central Bank and the Bank of England.

According to the report, Western economies seeking a meaningful reduction in China dependence will need to invest heavily in factory and physical infrastructure, as well as workforce training and the automation of production processes.

Given the scale of the challenges, Persson said that “partial decoupling” was a more probable outcome. Under this scenario, companies would need to be selective about where they allocate resources to build resilience against potential bottlenecks controlled by China.