Around 40-50 Indians still in Ukraine, of which only few willing to return: Govt
New Delhi, Mar 31: As many as 22,500 nationals have returned to India from Ukraine since February and around 40-50 Indians are still in the war-torn country, of which only a few are willing to return, Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday.
"Overall, 22,500 nationals have returned to India since February 2022. Around 40-50 Indian nationals are still in Ukraine, of which only a few are willing to return to India. Their return is being facilitated by the Embassy," said Minister of State for External Affairs Meenakashi Lekhi in a written response to a question on the number of people evacuated from Ukraine.
The Ukrainian authorities had shut down the country's airspace for civilian aircraft after the Russian attack on February 24.
To another question on the number of operations carried out to evacuate stranded Indians and other nationals during the last five years, she said during the global Covid pandemic, the government launched the Vande Bharat Mission to repatriate Indian nationals and to facilitate the travel of passengers between India and other parts of the world.
"Around 2.97 crore passengers (in-bound and out-bound) have been facilitated in the flights operated under the Vande Bharat Mission and Air Bubble Arrangements till date," she said.
Under 'Operation Devi Shakti', a total of 669 people were evacuated from Afghanistan, including 448 Indian nationals, 206 Afghans (including Hindu Sikh minority community members) and 15 people of other nationalities (Nepal, Lebanon and Uganda) in seven flights between August 16 to 25, 2021 and the last flight on December 10, 2021, Lekhi said.
All Indian nationals who had sought repatriation to India were evacuated, she added.
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NEET-UG: 2 more held, role of several NTA officers under scanner; CBI focussing on source of leak
New Delhi (PTI): The CBI has arrested two more persons in connection with the NEET (UG) paper-leak case, with the role of several officers of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and other organisations, who had access to the printing press where the papers were printed, coming under the scanner, officials said on Thursday.
The agency has arrested Dhananjay Lokhanda from Ahilyanagar and Manisha Waghmare from Pune and conducted searches at 14 locations across the country in the last 24 hours, they said.
The CBI is focussing on identifying the source of the leak that has caused massive disappointment to lakhs of aspirants eyeing a seat in undergraduate medical courses, which are allotted after the highly-competitive examination, the officials said.
According to the CBI probe so far, the involvement of public servants in the leak cannot be ruled out.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested three individuals from Jaipur -- Mangilal Biwal, Vikas Biwal and Dinesh Biwal -- along with Yash Yadav from Gurugram and Shubham Khairnar from Nashik.
Khairnar was in touch with Yadav and informed him in April that Mangilal Biwal was ready to pay Rs 10-12 lakh for arranging leaked NEET (UG) 2026 questions for his younger son.
Khairnar allegedly provided 500 to 600 questions from the leaked paper to Yadav, the officials said, adding that the questions could have helped score enough marks to get a seat in a reputed medical college.
Mangilal Biwal allegedly procured the paper from Yadav, who was known to his elder son Vikas Biwal from an NEET coaching in Rajasthan's Sikar. The deal between Mangilal Biwal and Yadav was for Rs 10 lakh, if 150 questions from the question bank matched with those in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) paper, the officials said.
Mangilal Biwal shared the paper with his son and further distributed it among relatives.
Yadav also told Vikas Biwal to find additional candidates for the questions to recover some of the money that he had spent on getting those, the officials said.
An analysis of digital devices has given the agency incriminating chats, leaked question papers and other digital evidence. The CBI will subject the devices to a forensic examination to get the deleted data, the officials said.
The federal agency has registered an FIR and formed teams to probe the alleged NEET (UG) paper leak that resulted in the cancellation of the exam held on May 3.
The NEET (UG) 2026 was conducted across 551 Indian cities and at 14 overseas centres. Nearly 23 lakh candidates had registered for the test, which was administered by the NTA at centres across the country.
According to the NTA, information regarding alleged malpractice was received on the evening of May 7, four days after the examination was held. The NTA said the inputs were escalated to central agencies the following morning for "independent verification and necessary action".
The Rajasthan Police's Special Operations Group (SOG) has claimed that a "guess paper" for chemistry, allegedly circulated among students ahead of the examination, had approximately 410 questions, including roughly 120 that appeared in the test.
