Cheating depends on invisibility for its success. But in India, cheating no longer seems to be a clandestine act - a photograph that went viral last year showed an examination centre in Bihar where people were hanging from window ledges to pass on answer chits to the candidates. The fact that students can cheat openly is a comment both on their desperation and on the authorities' failure to curtail the habit. Worse, the latter have been known to act in collusion with the students - there have been instances of teachers leaking the question papers, helping students with the answers over the phone, all for a fee, and of the police accepting bribes to look the other way at examination centres. State governments and examination boards seem to have suddenly noticed what has been going on right under their noses all this while. Governments of states such as Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, where cheating during examinations is common, have implemented stringent measures to stop the practice. The Bihar government has been especially severe, announcing a fine and a jail term for cheaters and their accomplices. Recently, the army took strictness to a new level when it asked the candidates appearing for a recruitment examination in Bihar's Muzaffarpur to strip to their underwear while sitting for the test.

This is taking things a bit too far. The army authorities seem to have assumed that all the candidates are dishonest. Such mistrust ill behoves a future employer, especially the army, on which the country is meant to repose its trust. Boards and governments also seem over-enthusiastic in their new-found zeal to curb cheating; more so, when they are partly responsible for the present state of affairs. The no-detention policy followed in schools all over India has meant that students do not have to prove their merit to get promoted till Class VIII. It would not be unusual for such untested students to resort to devious means to keep up their winning streak when they face the decisive board examinations. Besides, the effectiveness of the steps to curb cheating is doubtful since several students are still cheating their way to success. But the safety checks must be racking the nerves of students with nothing to hide. A student frustrated with the repeated strip-searches appeared in his vest and shorts at his examination centre in Chhapra to make things easier for his tormentors.