New Delhi: The Union government has extended the tenure of the high-powered committee set up to tackle paper leaks until January 2027, the Deccan Herald has reported.The task force, led by Aadhar-founder Nandan Nilekani, was constituted a day after Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan was forced to resign on July 25. The committee was originally given three months to submit its report.“The stakeholder consultations have been going on. The government has also submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court listing the progress made by the panel so far. The panel has now been granted time till January 2027 to submit its report,” the paper said, citing an anonymous source. The committee has received over 50,000 suggestions from students, parents, teachers and other stakeholders so far.Other members of the committee are former ISRO chairman S. Somnath, former Intelligence Bureau (IB) director Tapan Deka, IIT Chennai director V. Kamakoti, former education secretary Anita Karwal and logistics expert Amrit Lal Meena. The Wire has previously noted that only Kamakoti has the experience of working in an academic institution.‘Use AI to prevent paper leaks’While speaking at a Bloomberg event in October, Nilekani had suggested generating questions papers with the help of AI on the day of important examinations.“The issue that led to this committee is that of question paper leaks. Why do we need to have something called ‘a question paper’? Because that creates an economic incentive for it to be sold. One way to look at how to solve it is to have a massive bank of questions, and only at the last minute generate the question paper for the day,” Nilekani said. This will only be feasible if the exams are conducted in computer-based test (CBT) mode, he had added. Whether creating a question bank also creates an economic incentive to leak it, he did not say. It was also not immediately clear from his remarks how computer-based exams will be conducted given limited internet access and a large digital divide between urban and rural students.Radhakrishnan committeeAccording to the report, the Nilekani-led panel has also consulted former ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan, who was heading a similar task force set up by the Union government following the 2024 NEET paper leak. The recommendations of the Radhakrishnan committee were submitted in October 2024 and were being implemented when the 2026 controversy erupted. The NEET paper leak earlier this year led to over 20 students dying by suicide, prompting widespread protests against Pradhan.