India, July 26 -- The assessment within the government was that a temporary optics setback was preferable to the possibility of violent clashes in the capital, prolonged disruption of public life, and the risk of the agitation evolving into a wider national movement.

Dharmendra Pradhan resigned as Union Education Minister on Saturday after weeks of student protests over alleged examination irregularities, with multiple senior government sources revealing that the Narendra Modi government accepted his resignation only after concluding it was the more prudent option than ordering security forces to clear the protest sites in the national capital, an operation that officials believed had become increasingly inevitable if the agitation conti...