What began as one student’s viral complaint about a mismatch between the physical and digital copies of his Grade 12 physics answer sheet has snowballed into a major controversy around one of India’s biggest and most important school-leaving exams.

Days after the government-run Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced its Grade 12 – equivalent to UK’s A level – results, dozens of students complained about errors in their marks allegedly linked to a newly-launched digital evaluation system used in the exam.

Called On-Screen Marking (OSM), the system works by scanning physical copies of answer-sheets and uploading them on an online portal for teachers to evaluate.

A software then calculates total marks in each exam. According to the education board, the system was introduced to reduce human error and effort and to increase transparency and efficiency.

While students often reported errors in manual evaluation, they say the new system has caused new problems instead of fixing old ones. Some say the scanned copies of answer sheets were blurry, which may have affected marks. Others say pages were missing, answers were marked wrongly, or the digital copies did not match the original paper answer sheets.

CBSE has responded to the allegations by saying that it remained committed to a “fair and transparent evaluation process”.

“All genuine concerns related to scanned answer books or evaluation will be reviewed by subject experts through the prescribed mechanism,” it said.

On Thursday, federal Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that it was the first time that the CBSE was using OSM, which he described as a “student-centric” and “globally accepted” system. He also acknowledged that “some discrepancies [in the results] had come to light”.

“I take responsibility for this and assure you that a solution will be found. We are working on it. We will not leave any student’s query unaddressed,” he said.

The students’ complaints have sparked national outrage and brought the education board’s digital evaluation system under the scanner.

Parents and educationists have questioned whether teachers received enough training and proper technology to run the new marking system effectively.

For millions of Indian students, CBSE exams are not just tests – they are gateways to college admissions, careers and social mobility.

CBSE is also one of the country’s largest education boards, with about two million students taking the Grade 12 exam this year. India also has state-run, private and international school boards.

Another reason why this issue has made national headlines is because it comes on the back of a controversy surrounding another crucial exam – the National Eligibility Entrance Test (Undergraduate), known as NEET-UG – which is the gateway to studying medicine in India.

Allegations to a paper leak in May led to the exam being cancelled, impacting nearly 2.28 million candidates who wrote the test, and leading to a spate of all alleged suicides.

[BBC]

Rescuers in Laos have found five villagers alive inside a flooded cave after they were trapped for a week following heavy rain and landslides.

Two other villagers who were with them are missing, Laotian and Thai rescue teams involved in the operation said.

The seven were part of a group of villagers from the central province of Xaysomboun who had gone into the cave on Wednesday last week in search of gold deposits and wildlife, but could not get out as the cave’s entrance was blocked.

Footage shared by the rescuers showed cave divers crawling through narrow, muddy passageways that were almost completely flooded.

Bounkham Luanglath of the Laotian organisation Rescue Volunteer for People told the Associated Press the search for the missing would continue.

“I’m still shaking,” he said in a voice message. “Our team made it happen.”

The cave system, which extends deep underground, is also extremely narrow, with some chambers measuring only about 50cm (20in) wide, rescuers say.

“We’ve found five people alive and all safe,” Rescue Volunteer for People said in a social media post.

“There are still two people we are searching for.”

Thai rescuer Kengkach Bangkawong said on Facebook that the villagers had been found at 16:30 local time (09:30 GMT).

Specialist rescue diver Mikko Paasi from Finland said earlier on Wednesday that rescuers needed to “navigate hundreds of metres of constant restrictions, flood waters, collapse hazards and high risk of contaminated air quality” inside the cave, which he called an “abandoned gold mine”.

He estimated the seven people were trapped around 300m (984ft) from the exit.

The villagers entered the cave, about 120km (75 miles) north of the capital Vientiane, last Wednesday, state media said.

“The area is not owned by anybody,” Laotian rescuer Baeng, who requested one name be used for security reasons, told AFP news agency. “Locals usually go there to dig holes and look for food.”

Kengkach was part of the team that helped bring 12 young Thai boys and their football coach to safety after they were trapped for two weeks inside a flooded cave underneath a mountain in Thailand’s Chiang Rai province in 2018.

The extraordinary rescue involved more than 10,000 experts from around the world and drew intense global attention.

Several films and documentaries have been made based on it, including the feature film Thirteen Lives and the documentary The Rescue.

[BBC]

Multiple people have been killed and injured and some are still missing after a major chemical explosion at a paper mill in Washington, authorities said.

The explosion occurred at 07:15 PDT (15:15 GMT) at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility in Longview, 130 miles (210km) south of Seattle.

Investigators said in a news conference on Tuesday that 10 people have been injured and transported to hospital. Officials have not yet said how many people have died or are unaccounted for.

The explosion occurred due a “rupture of a tank containing white liquor”, the company said in a statement. White liquor is a highly corrosive chemical used in the paper-making process.

Cowlitz Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein said there are an “unknown number of fatalities at this moment,” adding that officials have “confirmed that there are fatalities, but the exact number is undetermined”.

Nine of the people injured are employees at the factory, and one is a firefighter, Goldstein said. Their injuries range from “critical severe to minor”, and include burn and inhalation injuries. The company statement said there were “multiple critical injuries”.

The tank that ruptured holds about 80,000 gallons (300,000 litres), he said, and it was roughly 60% full when the explosion occurred.

The scene is stable, the chief said, but the public should stay away from the area as firefighting efforts continue. He said the fire does not pose any threat to the larger community.

“The scene remains in the recovery phase as emergency responders continue operations,” the Longview Fire Department said in a statement.

“No identifying information regarding injured or deceased individuals will be released at this time pending notification of family members.”

White liquor is an alkaline chemical containing sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide.

Washington Governor Bob Ferguson said state ecology workers have been sent to the site to assist local officials.

“I’m deeply saddened to hear that there have been fatalities,” Ferguson said in a statement.

“My thoughts are with the workers and their families, and with the first responders.”

According to local media, the Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility was also the scene of a major fire in July 2023, when piles of wood at the site burned for days.

The plant makes tissues, printer paper, cups, plates, cartons, and other goods, according to CBS, the BBC’s US partner. It employees 1,000 people, according to the Washington State Department of Ecology.

[BBC]