India, May 13 -- Set up in May 2018 as an autonomous "premier testing organisation," the National Testing Agency has spent much of its existence firefighting - and the scrapping of NEET-UG 2026, after a paper taken by 2.2 million aspirants was found to have been leaked, is only the latest in a long line of failures that experts trace to two structural flaws: excessive dependence on outsourcing and a chronic shortage of permanent staff. "NTA's overdependence on contractual staff is its biggest weakness. Too few regular, accountable employees creates institutional fragility," a member of the Radhakrishnan committee formed after the NEET-UG 2024 controversy, said. P8...