Nandan Nilekani is chairing a task force on how India runs its entrance exams

The machinery now sitting over India's entrance examinations is larger than most candidates realise, and the affidavit published by the testing agency this week sets it out in one place. There are three bodies, and they do different things.

The expert committee and its 101 recommendations

The High Level Committee of Experts (HLCE), chaired by Dr K. Radhakrishnan, produced a report making 101 recommendations across four heads:

• Reformation of National Common Entrance Testing (Phase 1)
• Reformation (Phase 2) — long-term perspectives
• Reforms for India as a global leader in digital education testing
• Monitoring and periodic appraisal by the Ministry of Education

The committee that watches the implementation

The High-Powered Steering Committee (HPSC), constituted by the Ministry of Education and chaired by Dr Radhakrishnan himself, monitors whether those recommendations are actually being implemented — through in-person meetings, presentations and periodic reviews, with the Director General of NTA apprising it of progress. Dr Radhakrishnan has filed his own affidavit before the Supreme Court, dated 28 May 2026, on the steps taken.

The new task force

The High-Powered Task Force (HPTF) was constituted by notification dated 27 July 2026 under the chairmanship of Nandan Nilekani, former Chairman of UIDAI. Its mandate is to review and recommend reforms that make the examination system robust, secure, transparent, trustworthy and future-ready, with recommendations explicitly "anchored in the utilization and leveraging of the latest technologies."

The task force has begun work and has held discussions with stakeholders including the Director General of NTA and the Department of Higher Education, and has consulted Dr Radhakrishnan. Suggestions filed by the petitioners in the Supreme Court proceedings have been placed before it for consideration.

Why the choice of chair is the story

Nilekani's association is with Aadhaar — building identity infrastructure at national scale, for a billion people, with biometric verification at the point of use. Putting him in charge of examination reform signals what kind of answer is expected: identity, authentication and digital delivery, rather than more paper and more couriers.

For a candidate, that is worth watching with both hope and care. Biometric authentication at the centre gate genuinely does make impersonation harder. It also introduces new ways to be wrongly excluded on exam morning — a fingerprint that will not read, a mismatch in a database. The task force's recommendations are where those trade-offs will be settled, and the Supreme Court has kept the matter listed.

CareerBox News Desk — reporting on the affidavit of the Union of India published by the National Testing Agency, describing the High Level Committee of Experts, the High-Powered Steering Committee and the High-Powered Task Force. Official portal: nta.ac.in. Dates and eligibility change; confirm them on the official portal before you act.