00:00It was a whole-of-government approach, whole-of-India approach, in which all government of India departments, state governments,
00:07district machinery, students, parents, all stakeholders came together to convey a message to all the fraudsters and scamsters that you
00:15cannot beat the system, you cannot take away the rights of the young students, young Indian minds, and we will
00:22ensure that we can conduct a glitch-free examination.
00:26So can you say this was error-free and flawless examination?
00:30This was as error-free and as flawless as it can be. We took every necessary step to do a
00:37balance between security and convenience of students, because that's always two things that one has to balance.
00:45That perfect balance was ensured. We worked with all agencies, all security agencies, to ensure that we are able to
00:53conduct an examination, which is not only glitch-free, but which is also a zero-error examination with zero tolerance
01:00for any malpractice.
01:01How much of a role the telegram ban played in it, sir, in conducting it?
01:06See, telegram ban, because we were 100% sure that the papers are safe, everything is safe, secure, we have
01:12complete control of chain of custody.
01:14What these platforms were doing was that they were sending a fake perception of leak, which adds to the mental
01:21stress and trauma of students.
01:23Because we are dealing with 17, 18-year-olds, and if these rumours keep on floating, they keep on wondering,
01:29what if something goes wrong again?
01:31And it is not fair to the young minds. Then also these platforms were encouraging fraudsters into fooling people with
01:38fake question papers and playing on the anxiety and the vulnerability of people that they will pay up small amounts
01:45to get a document, which will have nothing to do with the question paper.
01:48So it was required to ensure that the fake perception of a leak or a system failure or a cyber
01:56crime in which the fraudsters would scam people into losing money, that had to be prevented.
02:02So that is what it has done. And telegram hopefully will remove the backdate editing feature, which is a big,
02:09big vulnerability in every exam, not only need, but every exam.
02:13Sir, I want to understand from you, telegram took you to the government, to the court also regarding this. Was
02:19there not any communication with telegram regarding this, that this is happening on telegram, please control it, please take actions?
02:25There was. There was. There was. In fact, our affidavit and Ministry of Electronics and IT notices, documents, all that,
02:32the number of meetings that were held, the number of messages that were given.
02:35And now telegram also has realised their folly. And in fact, their CEO also on 17th of June when he
02:40tweeted, he mentioned that there is a feature that they are trying to remove, which encourages scans.
02:47So it's like an admission on their part that they had a vulnerability in their system.
02:51Sir, can you give me the exact number of students who gave re-need yesterday? Because we got to know
02:56just over 20 lakhs. But the exact number is not true.
02:59See, 20 lakhs, over 20 lakhs is what the number is. The exact numbers we are getting, because there are
03:04some cases in which biometric authentication is not successful and we get an undertaking when the students and they write.
03:11So actual numbers, plus minus a few hundreds will be there. That will be sharing as when we get all
03:17the reports from all the centres.
03:18Sir, but this is, the number is less than the meet that was conducted on May, March, May 3. What
03:26is the reason for that, sir?
03:28See, the reason could be multiple, because many students write multiple examinations. The engineering results are already out. The J
03:34.E. mains, J.E. advanced results are already out.
03:36So maybe some of them have opted for those options. Many of them opt for other career options. CUT has
03:42also been done.
03:43So, this is young, these are children, young age, in which they have multiple career options. Some of them, after
03:50the examination, third may, might have thought that they will prepare better and write the other exam.
03:54So exact details, we will be doing the data analytics. We will be doing the region-wise, city-wise, centre
03:58-wise, split with regard to how the numbers have been there.
04:01And what we see, by and large, is consistent across. It is something which is normal in any re-exam,
04:07whenever we conduct such a thing.
04:09Sir, many reports are coming in regarding cheating. How are you looking at it? Can you give us numbers? How
04:14many cheating cases are there?
04:15Some cases have been reported from Bihar. We have got some cases of Lucky Sarai. In some cases, some students
04:20were trying to smuggle in mobile phones. In some cases, somebody was trying to impersonate.
04:25So, we do all level of risking and checking and CCTV surveillance and biometric authentication to check these malpractices.
04:36The purpose of all the security layers that we have is to ensure that nobody is able to do any
04:41malpractice.
04:41It is obvious that if there are few persons who are trying to do that, they will be caught.
04:46Sir, there was a fact-check by BIB and NTA also regarding a video that was going viral. How are
04:52you dealing with such misinformation and moreover, sir, are you receiving more mails regarding such fake leak information and something
04:59like that?
05:00See, we have said very clearly that anybody who tries to spread misinformation, share fake videos, share fake posts in
05:08order to scam someone or in order to increase the mental stress of people, the strong arm of the law
05:13will come very strongly on it.
05:14So, all such cases are in our radar and we have reported to them and those who are appropriating them
05:22will be dealt with very strongly by the police and the law enforcement agencies.
05:27Sir, are you still keeping an eye because last RENIT, the leak about the information about the energy leak came
05:33after three, four days. Are you still keeping an eye on the report?
05:37We keep an eye on everything, but this time we are 100% sure about the security and integrity of
05:44the process, right from setting of question papers to the translations to the printing.
05:51We have complete chain of custody. So, as NTA, as we all are 100% sure that this is error
05:58-free and there is no possibility of any leak in this examination.
06:01Sir, what is your next target for NEET examination? Can you tell us a bit about what are you thinking
06:07to develop a flawless system?
06:10See, we have already, like the government has already accepted the recommendation of the High Level Committee for going for
06:15a computer-based testing examination.
06:16So, we will be very soon doing a thorough analysis, stakeholder discussion and finalization of the plan for the next
06:26year's examination, which will be done in a computer-based test, but that requires planning at another level.
06:32So, we are already on the job. We started UGC NET today. So, once this cycle of examination is over,
06:37we will be announcing the plans for the next year's NEET examination.
06:40Sir, when can we expect the results to be out?
06:43As soon as possible. Our teams are on the job.
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