In appointing the Nandan Nilekani Committee to recommend reforms to National Testing Agency (NTA), and India's public examination architecture in general, GoI has acted wisely. While the immediate motivation is, of course, compromising of NEET, the issues the committee should scrutinise run far deeper.
For too long, NTA and the broader exam process have been left to tactical, even ad hoc, decision-making. NTA's emergence itself, encompassing a much wider ambit than was originally envisaged, is a case study of unintended consequences. The only explicable logic has been bureaucratic capture and power grab. Modernising the exam system in a country of so many young people, desperate for a fair chance, has been a lesser goal.
