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India's Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on Saturday after mass youth-led protests demanded his ouster in anger over irregularities in exams, what matters in people’s lives.
Thousands of young people gathered in the capital and in other parts of the country this week, under the banner of the social media-driven Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), demanding a renovation of the education system and Pradhan's resignation.
The CJP said after Pradhan's resignation that all their demands had been met in another round of talks and that they were calling off the protests that were centred on the Jantar Mantar demonstration site in central New Delhi.
The government held two rounds of talks with CJP leaders on Monday and Friday but with the youth-led movement sticking to their demands, little progress was made initially.
Pradhan announced his resignation before the third round of talks.
The youth-led movement has evolved to include concerns over unemployment, lack of opportunities for young people, and what critics brand as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's increasingly authoritarian style of governance.
The protests became one of the biggest challenges to Modi's government since his 2024 re-election.
The protesters' other demands included compensation for those affected by examination irregularities and for legal cases against protesters to be dropped, CJP spokesman Ashutosh Ranka said.
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