New Delhi, Jan 1 (UNI) The year just gone by saw the combative Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani making way for the low profile Prakash Javadekar, the return of the Class X board exams -- albeit from 2018 -- and a surge in student agitations that rocked the JNU and Hyderabad Central University (HCU) campuses and spilled into national campuses. While visuals of the mass cheating in a Bihar school grabbed headlines, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) also kept students agog in an eventful year that has just concluded. In a mid-year Cabinet reshuffle, Prakash Javadekar landed the high-profile HRD Ministry: In a surprise move, his predecessor Smriti Irani was moved out and Javadekar appointed the new Education Minister indicating that the RSS wanted a minister willing to put hindutva goals on the front burner and a more pliant incumbent. On January 17, 2016, young Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide and the raising of anti-national slogans in JNU by outsiders barely a month later made the two Central universities the cynosure of national attention and keeping them in public focus well into the year by raising many crucial questions -- not least about nationalism and efficacy of social integration policies as well. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) was busy rewriting examination rules and making Class X board exams compulsory and no longer optional. But the change will occur from the 2018 academic year onwards. Also, CBSE revoked the 'no detention policy' from Class VIII to Class V as parents and educationists feared falling academic standards due to this policy. Despite high hopes that the new National Education Policy would finally be unveiled after former Cabinet Secretary TSR Subramanian, who headed the three-member panel, submitted the report, these were belied and the wait continues. The HRD Ministry released the first government-backed ranking of Indian institutions in higher education of participating institutions -- both public and private -- under the engineering, management, pharmacy and universities categories. MORE UNI SD SHS RJ 1030