In 1981, Nandan Nilekani co-founded Infosys with six others and about $250 in starting capital. In 2009, he left to build Aadhaar as founding chairman of UIDAI — a role with Cabinet Minister rank — before returning to Infosys as chairman in 2017.
On July 26, 2026, he got a new mandate: chair a 6-member task force reforming India’s public examination system, formed a day after Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned amid protests over the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak. The May 3 exam was cancelled and retested on June 21 after the leak allegations surfaced.
The panel — former ISRO chief S Somanath, ex-Intelligence Bureau director Tapan Deka, IIT Madras director V Kamakoti, former Education Secretary Anita Karwal, and logistics expert Amrit Lal Meena — is reviewing the entire exam lifecycle: paper-setting, transmission, conduct, evaluation, results. Reporting around the mandate points toward tools like AI-based monitoring, blockchain verification and Aadhaar-linked biometric authentication being on the table — infrastructure adjacent to what Nilekani already built once, at national scale.
No public deadline was reported in available coverage.
The through-line worth watching: India keeps routing its hardest state-capacity problems through the same handful of people who’ve solved one at scale before. Whether exam security becomes Aadhaar’s sequel — or another report that quietly expires — depends on what ships next.
Sources: Drishti IAS, “Public Examinations Amendment Bill 2026 and Nandan Nilekani-Led Task Force” · Forbes India · Inkl, “From Aadhaar to Exams” · DQ India
