Dharmendra Pradhan on May 20, 2026 chaired review meetings with central security and intelligence agencies and, separately, with representatives of Meta, Google and Telegram to press for tighter controls ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination after the exam was cancelled earlier in May following a paper leak.
Government officials at the meetings expressed "serious concerns" about what they called the "growing spread of misinformation related to competitive examinations." Officials singled out "fake paper leak claims," "clickbait content," and "unverified information that triggers panic, anxiety and confusion among students and parents" as the principal harms driving the intervention.
The Education Ministry said Pradhan called for a "focused crackdown" and urged platforms and security agencies to move to "proactive identification, blocking and takedown of channels spreading fake information, propaganda and panic before examinations." The ministry added that "safeguarding students from misleading narratives and maintaining public confidence in the examination process remains a top priority for the government."
Officials told the meetings that several channels had become "highly active" in the run-up to the cancelled exam, "particularly through Telegram channels and anonymous online groups." Intelligence inputs cited at the session pointed to "multiple suspicious channels that are being operated through a limited set of phone numbers, indicating coordinated and organised activity," officials said.
The meetings came as authorities prepare for a re-examination to replace the paper-leaked NEET-UG 2026 sitting cancelled earlier in May. That timeline focused the urgency of the talks: with students, families and institutions awaiting a new date, the government framed rapid action against misinformation as essential to avoid another disruption.
There is an acute operational tension at the centre of the push. The government has demanded swift, platform-level takedowns and proactive filtering, and it brought platform representatives into the same room. What the public record of the meetings does not say is what specific technical or procedural commitments, if any, the companies offered during the discussions, leaving a gap between the demand for immediate results and the reality of how removals and investigations are carried out.
Officials described the problem in blunt terms: waves of unverified claims and sensational posts can spread faster than official clarifications, they said, amplifying stress among students and parents and complicating the work of investigators. At the same time, intelligence agencies are pointing to patterns—clusters of channels and repeated phone numbers—that suggest the activity is not entirely organic. That, officials argued, requires both a security response and cooperation from platforms.
Representatives of Meta, Google and Telegram attended the meeting on May 20, 2026 but there has been no joint public statement detailing operational timelines or a list of channels to be removed. The Education Ministry explicitly set out the playbook it wants: "proactive identification, blocking and takedown of channels spreading fake information, propaganda and panic before examinations." The ministry said such steps should be aimed at restoring confidence in the process and protecting students from needless distress.
The crucial question now is whether companies can translate that demand into fast, verifiable action in the days before the re-examination. If platforms and security agencies can produce rapid removals of the most damaging channels and demonstrate they can suppress coordinated disinformation, the government’s effort to stabilise the examination schedule will have a fighting chance; if not, the re-exam could face the same cycle of rumours, panic and disruption that followed the cancellation earlier in May.
