India's education minister has resigned under sustained pressure from a wave of student protests over irregularities in the NEET examination, the highly competitive national entrance test for medical colleges. The resignation, described by observers as an "exhilarating moment" for India's youth, marks a rare concession by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the face of mass street mobilisation.

The protests have been led in large part by a student movement known as the "Cockroach Party" (Parti des Cafards), whose founder Abhijeet Dipke has become one of the most prominent voices demanding systemic accountability. Students and opposition politicians have accused authorities of allowing entrenched networks of corruption to facilitate repeated exam paper leaks, undermining a process on which millions of young Indians stake their futures. NEET, which determines admission to medical programmes across the country, is taken by hundreds of thousands of candidates each year, making any irregularity a high-stakes national issue.

In an attempt to contain the crisis following the minister's departure, the government fast-tracked new anti-fraud legislation through the lower house of parliament. The law stiffens penalties for exam-related fraud — including prison sentences of up to ten years — and establishes special tribunals to handle such cases. Modi also promised to accelerate ongoing investigations into the leaks.

However, neither the student movement nor the parliamentary opposition appears convinced. Dipke argued that new legislation is meaningless without genuine political will, pointing out that a court hearing Modi had promised would proceed swiftly was already postponed when federal police lawyers failed to appear. Dimple Yadav, a member of parliament from the Samajwadi Party — a major opposition force in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh — dismissed the measures as "yet another amendment," warning that exam papers continue to leak and that the government is allowing corruption to take deeper root. Critics argue the law fails to dismantle the political networks that enable fraud in the first place.

The legislation still requires approval from India's upper house of parliament before it can take effect. For now, student protesters are celebrating the minister's resignation as a first victory while making clear they regard it as only the beginning of a longer campaign for genuine reform of India's high-stakes examination system.