Morning Digest: Jharkhand CM scraps exams held by tainted firm; Bihar Police tells Supreme Court ‘trapped’ constable fired AK-47 during NEET protest, and more

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Protestors celebrate after the Jharkhand government cancels the JSSC-CGL exam and all exams conducted by the tainted firm, in Ranchi on August 17, 2026. | Photo Credit: ANI

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren announced the cancellation of the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combined Graduate Level (JSSC-CGL) examination late on Monday (August 18, 2026), 24 days after students began the protest over alleged irregularities in recruitment exams in the State. However, Ravindra Paswan, leader of the JPSC-JSSC Reform Manch, which has been leading the protest, said the agitation would continue as their key demand of a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into alleged examination irregularities had not been met.

The Bihar Police told the Supreme Court in an affidavit on Monday (August 18, 2026) that a police constable “trapped” in the crowd during the Bihar students’ NEET-UG paper leak protests and ensuing violence fired four rounds from his AK-47 rifle in the air. “No one was injured from the bullets of the AK-47,” the affidavit said.

The Supreme Court observed in a judgment on Monday (August 17, 2026) that ridding the electoral process of the influence of black money is a responsibility of the Election Commission of India (ECI). “Black money in the electoral process is one such aspect that compromises democracy, rule of law and the electoral process itself,” a judgment authored by Justice Sanjay Karol noted. The court said the bane of tainted money circulating and influencing voters’ choices was an age-old problem. It has been recognised time and again, but not yet resolved.

The Congress on Monday (August 17, 2026) accused the Modi government of deliberately excluding the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category from the census questionnaire, alleging that the omission was part of a “deep conspiracy” to keep the community’s actual population out of official data. Addressing a press conference at the Congress office, party’s OBC department national chairman Anil Jaihind said the OBC category was missing from the 10th question in the questionnaire issued on August 14.

The Left parties on Monday (August 17, 2026) renewed their demand for scrapping the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, after the NTA announced a retest for three papers of the UGC-NET June 2026 examination following complaints of errors in the question papers. CPI(M), CPI and CPI(ML) say the retest announcement exposes deep flaws in the examination system; demand an overhaul of the education policy and testing mechanism.

The Supreme Court on Monday (August 17, 2026) directed the restoration of the Instagram and Facebook accounts of the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) Gujarat unit. A Bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe passed the order on an interim application filed by the party.