India, May 13 -- For the second time in three years, the futures of millions of medical education aspirants have been thrown into jeopardy because of the callousness of the authorities who have, once again, failed to prevent a paper leak. Three years ago, the Supreme Court refrained from ordering a retest of the 2024 National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for undergraduates, underlining that the material on record did not show any "systemic breach". This time, the National Testing Agency (NTA) has announced the cancellation of the 2026 test, suggesting that the breach is far more serious. The decision came after at least 120 questions in a guess paper - a compilation of suggested questions by subject experts and teachers, based on previous trends, and circulated first in Rajasthan - were found to be common with the NEET exam paper on May 3. Officials said the handwritten guess paper might have reached thousands in Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Kerala as well. That the leak was only detected a week after the exam not only shows NTA and government authorities in a poor light but also exposes that little has changed institutionally since the last paper leak in 2024. NTA is yet to announce the date for the new exam, and the delay will have a cascading effect on counselling, admissions, and courses. Many questions arise: How did a guess paper have more than half the questions of the NEET paper? Who are the teachers who set this paper? How did the NEET questions leak? What were the authorities doing? What happened to the safeguards that were apparently put in place after the 2024 leak? Following the 2024 incident, the government formed a seven-member committee, led by former Indian Space Research Organisation chief K Radhakrishnan, which suggested sweeping reforms for conducting the exams, focusing on security, data protocol, and agency restructuring. Were these fully implemented? Partly? At all? National entrance exams carry enormous burdens of aspiration. As exams that select the country's future doctors, NEET is key to shaping India's future. They work because of the implicit faith of millions of young people in a fair and transparent process. Repeated paper leaks have sullied that trust. NTA needs to come clean on what exactly went wrong and how, and make transparent, far-reaching changes that ensure this doesn't happen again. Students deserve better....