Telegram’s Durov says India is penalizing 150 million users after the app was banned in the country
Workers of the National Students Union of India (NSUI) hold placards with India’s Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan during a protest against the National Testing Agency (NTA) over alleged exam paper leaks and the rescheduling of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) in Hyderabad, Telangana, on June 20, 263.
Nurphoto Nurphoto Getty Images
Messaging platform Telegram criticized the Indian government’s move to temporarily block access to the app to prevent exam cheating, saying it penalizes 150 million regular users rather than those responsible for leaking test papers.
On Tuesday, Indian authorities blocked access to Telegram in an effort to prevent exam fraud, after the cancellation of a key exam last month sparked protests across the country.
Telegraph will be unavailable until June 22, while its messaging feature will be shut down until June 30, India’s National Testing Agency said in a statement shared with X on Tuesday.
This measure responds to the “planned use of [Telegram] platform by rigging rackets to defraud candidates,” who will be conducting the national entrance examination on June 21, NTA said.
The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (undergraduate) or NEET-UG is an important test for admission to medical colleges and was canceled in May due to alleged paper leak, affecting millions of students.
The Telegraph is owned by Russian-born tech billionaire Pavel Durov, and claims to have more than a billion active users worldwide.
The government’s move “punishes the 150 million Telegram users in India – not the insiders who leaked the tests,” Durov said in his forum on Tuesday. He added that the ban “doesn’t stop anything,” and that leaks have recently migrated to other apps. CNBC could not independently verify those figures.
In the past few weeks, a government investigation found several channels on Telegram claiming to have access to leaked exam papers and asking for payments “ranging from several thousand to several lakhs of rupees to students and their families.”
The NTA said no such exam paper is “available outside the secure exam series,” and seeking access to it amounts to fraud.
Last month, Rahul Gandhi, the leader of India’s opposition, called for the country’s education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, to step down, following the NEET “paper leak” that affected 2.2 million students. The NEET-UG exams were first conducted on May 3 but were canceled on May 12, following complaints that they were not conducted according to schedule.
A social media-based political party known as the Cockroach Janta Party has also organized protests across India demanding accountability over the paper leak.
The disparity in testing has been “absolutely catastrophic,” Ashok Malik, a fellow at the public policy think tank The Asia Group told CNBC earlier this month. “Perhaps the biggest challenge the government has faced in 12 years,” he said.
