Skip next section What you need to know
What you need to know
- National Testing Agency cancels three exams for grant entrance tests over ‘errors’
- Opposition leaders call for education agency to be held accountable
- Seven killed, several injured in temple stampede in Bihar
- Seven pilgrims killed in hotel fire in West Bengal
Here’s a roundup of the biggest headlines from India on Monday, August 17:
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Skip next section India’s opposition calls for NTA to be ‘held accountable’ Published 08/17/2026Published August 17, 2026last updated 08/17/2026last updated August 17, 2026
India’s opposition calls for NTA to be ‘held accountable’
In the hours after the NTA announced retests for the University Grants Commission – National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET), India’s opposition leaders began once again pointing out alleged educational failures under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Modi ji, look at what your NTA has just done,” Rahul Gandhi, Modi’s biggest political rival and leader of the opposition in the lower house of the parliament, said on X.
“This is no longer an education system. It is an extraction machine. It takes your money, your years, your mental health, and your confidence and returns nothing. Not even a job,” Gandhi said.
“Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation was the first step, not the last. NTA’s leadership must be held accountable too,” he added.
Several other allied leaders echoed Gandhi on social media.
Some called for the resignation of NTA Chairperson Pradeep Kumar Joshi, while others called for the agency to be dissolved completely.
Prime Minister Modi installed party veteran Pralhad Joshi as India’s new Education Minister on July 25, after Pradhan resigned under pressure of protests. The rare resignation was viewed as a dent in the government’s invincibility aura, over 12 years into Modi’s dominance in Indian politics.
Modi has since sought to reassure students by announcing new student-friendly schemes and introducing legislation to increase punishment over paper leaks.
https://p.dw.com/p/5IvLWSkip next section India temple stampede in Bihar kills 708/17/2026August 17, 2026
India temple stampede in Bihar kills 7
A stampede at a temple in India’s eastern Bihar state has left at least seven people dead and over a dozen injured, according to media reports.
The incident took place at the Ashok Dham temple in the Lakhisarai district as a swell of devotees thronged the site to offer water to Lord Shiva on what Hindus consider an auspicious Monday of the ongoing holy month of Shravan.
Shivam Kumar, a senior police officer, told news agency ANI that an electric pole fell at the site, sparking panic that led to the stampede.
He added that the incident was being investigated.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his grief over the deaths.
“My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. May the injured recover at the earliest. The local administration is assisting those affected,” the prime minister’s office quoted him as saying.
Read thefull story here.
https://p.dw.com/p/5IvLYSkip next section India’s testing agency cancels three exams over ‘errors’08/17/2026August 17, 2026
India’s testing agency cancels three exams over ‘errors’
India’s National Testing Agency (NTA) has canceled three entrance exams to test the eligibility of candidates for grants, PhDs and the position of assistant professors, after receiving complaints of significant errors in the question papers.
The exams for English, Commerce and Sociology will now be re-conducted in September, the NTA said in a statement.
The agency said it found that “the three papers had many factual, typographical, translation errors including misspelt names of prominent scholars, garbled book titles, errors in the stem wording of questions, grammatical errors, gender and number agreement errors, punctuation mistakes, and non-standard coined terms for established concepts, as well as repetition of a significant number of questions previously administered.”
While the agency has waived the fee amount for the retests, students will likely face delayed plans, another round of studying and repeated uncertainty.
This comes months after the NTA canceled the all-India pre-medical NEET examination after its question paper was leaked. The re-examination reportedly drove tens of students to suicide and sparked youth-led protests across India, resulting in the resignation of then Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in July.
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https://p.dw.com/p/5IvI4Skip next section Welcome to our coverage08/17/2026August 17, 2026
Welcome to our coverage
Mahima Kapoor | Natalie Muller Editor
Hello! Welcome to DW’s India blog.
This is Mahima Kapoor reporting from the national capital where alleged failures in India’s education system are still at the center of politics. That’s weeks after protests forced the former education minister’s resignation over leaked question papers from a crucial pre-medical entrance test.
The National Testing Agency, which drew much of the public ire in July’s protests, has now canceled three other entrance exams over several errors in the question papers. India’s opposition leaders are now calling for the agency to be “held accountable.”
In other news, a temple stampede in the state of Bihar killed at least seven people and has left dozens injured. Another seven pilgrims were killed in the neighboring state of West Bengal when a hotel caught fire in a popular temple town.
Stay tuned for all of this and more!
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