22/06/2026

MONDAY | JUNE 22, 2026

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India holds exam resit after leak

annually by millions of candidates competing for just over 100,000 undergraduate seats. The intense competition has fuelled a vast coaching industry and created opportunities for criminal networks seeking to profit from paper leaks and exam fraud. The leak prompted a backlash from students and parents after last month’s exam was scrapped, with Indian media reporting suicides of some teenagers. India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested the alleged kingpin behind the leak, identifying him as a chemistry lecturer. The NTA said that messaging apps were used “by cheating rackets to defraud candidates” by sharing leaked questions. Telegram head Pavel Durov said the week-long ban would not work, arguing that the “leaks just moved to other apps” and that the issue was the “insiders who leaked the exam materials”. The controversy came on top of another dispute over the online marking system used for tests taken by nearly two million high school students, with many alleging incorrect grades or results were assigned to the wrong candidates. Public anger has also fuelled the rise of the satirical youth-led “Cockroach People’s Party”. – AFP Thai investigators seized more than 100 protected wildlife remains. According to a Traffic Southeast Asia Facebook post, authorities crippled a gang trying to smuggle 130kg of cut elephant ivory and animal carcass along the Thai-Lao border on May 16. Laos shares borders with Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, making it a strategic location for trafficking, according to wildlife experts. – Bernama Takaichi Cabinet losing support TOKYO: The approval rate for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Cabinet slipped to 55.8%, the lowest point since she took office last October, a Kyodo News poll showed yesterday, amid lingering uncertainty over the economic fallout from the West Asia conflict. In the weekend telephone survey, 54.7% of respondents felt no need to send Japanese Self-Defence Forces to Hormuz to secure the safe passage of commercial vessels, while 36.6% thought otherwise. With households continuing to struggle with elevated prices, the poll also showed that the largest share of responses, at 43.9%, said lowering the consumption tax rate on food and beverages from 8% to 1% is acceptable if the idea allows for faster introduction, while 22.6% called for cutting it to zero, as pledged by the ruling parties. – Bernama

NEW DELHI: India’s 2.2 million aspiring medical students sat for a re-examination under tight security yesterday, after the last test was scrapped following a paper leak that triggered widespread outrage. The failure of the hugely competitive exam, along with a separate marking fiasco in high school tests, sparked an outcry and fuelled youth protests demanding the education minister’s resignation. The authorities say they have deployed more than 200,000 officials, including police and restricted the Telegram messaging app. The National Testing Agency (NTA) said it had put in a place a “multi-layered security framework to ensure a fair and transparent examination”. That includes biometric authentication, AI-enabled camera surveillance and GPS tracking of question papers, it said. The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the gateway to India’s medical colleges, is taken o Tight security includes biometric authentication Four days later, wildlife rangers seized 294 live wild animals at Vang Tao Checkpoint in Champasak Province that leads to Ubon Ratchathani Province in Thailand. Turtles, pythons, green snakes, gold-ringed cat snakes and lizards were seized from the suspects. The seizures followed the arrest on May 27 of a Thai woman operating a traditional medicine and souvenir shop in Nakhon Phanom, northeastern Thailand.

A medical student hugs her mother before leaving for the re-examination in Ahmedabad. – AFPPIC

Mekong wildlife ring busted PHNOM PENH: Recent seizures of endangered animals and wildlife products along the Thai-Laos border have exposed a thriving black market. “The species are not native to Laos,” said the newspaper. The Lao Wildlife Enforcement Network found 60kg of illegal wildlife products in Luang Prabang.

Sand miner hurt near volcano JAKARTA: An eruption of Mount Semeru on Saturday left a sand miner with severe burns after he was struck by superheated volcanic material in East Java province. The eruption lasted about four minutes and generated pyroclastic flows, fast-moving avalanches of hot gas, ash and rock fragments from the volcano’s summit, said Mukdas Sofian, a volcano observer at Indonesia’s Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation. The miner, Very Irawan, 33, suffered burns to about 80% of his body and was admitted to hospital for intensive treatment. Irawan and several colleagues were collecting volcanic sand deposited by previous eruptions when a mass of unstable volcanic material collapsed into a river channel, his brother, Aris Susanto said. Indah Amperawati, the head of the Lumajang district, said authorities had repeatedly warned residents not to carry out mining in hazardous areas around Besuk Kobokan. “I have already appealed to people not to conduct mining activities in the southeastern Besuk Kobokan sector within a 13km radius,” she said. Sand mining has become an important source of income for many communities living around Mount Semeru. The volcano’s eruptions deposit large quantities of sand and stone that are highly valued by the construction industry. Mount Semeru, standing at 3,676m, is the highest mountain on Java and one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes. – Bernama

Authorities confiscated ivory objects, gallbladders, pangolin scales and rhino horns. Boxes of elephant skin powder, bear gallbladder, hornbill head and tubes of herbal medicine suspected to contain wildlife ingredients were also seized.

Lao authorities rescued animals and seized wildlife products in Luang Prabang and Champasak provinces last week, The Laotian Times reported. “The animals were found in an express bus travelling between Pakse and Bangkok.

WATER WORKOUTS ... Yoga enthusiasts twisting and turning at a water park on International Yoga Day in Ahmedabad, India. – REUTERSPIC