India's 'cockroach' movement ousts minister, but can Modi calm youth?

A protester holds a placard after India's Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned following nationwide protests as part of the Cockroach Janta Party's protest movement in Mumbai, India on Saturday. Ashish Vaishnav/AP hide caption toggle caption Ashish Vaishnav/AP NEW DELHI — India's education minister tendered his resignation on Saturday, meeting a key demand of students whose anti-government protests swelled this week beyond the capital New Delhi and onto the streets of more than a dozen cities. The students held the minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, responsible for a series of leaks in nationwide exams for university seats or government jobs, which millions of students take every year. The protests posed the most serious challenge to the 12-year rule of India's Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi. For weeks, the government had ignored the protesters, then vilified them, with the education minister calling protest leaders "the B team of terrorists," according to the Indian daily The Hindu. Presenters of Modi-loyal media outlets suggested the protest leaders were paid by India's enemy and neighbor, Pakistan. In a two-page letter posted on X, Pradhan said he was resign...