Did the system kill IIT-ian? by Anjali Doshi
Mumbai, November 21, 2005
About a week before he committed suicide last Wednesday, Vijay Nukala (22) got the worst news of his life: he would have to repeat a year at IIT. It wasn't because the final year engineering physics student wasn't good enough academically — it was because of the letters XX marked against his name.
Last year, the authorities at IIT, Powai, became extremely strict about enforcing a rule that meant final year students with less than 80 per cent attendance would be failed regardless of how they fared at the examinations at the end of a 16-week semester. In fact, they are not allowed to sit for the exams if there is a shortfall in attendance. And their names carry the XX appendage: two seemingly innocuous letters that translate to one lost year in a student's life.
But for Nukala, that wasn't all. Although he majored in engineering
physics, computers were always his first love: he was recognised as the presiding geek at Powai, inventor of the campus' most widely used intranet system, 'Umang'. But the computer science project he had to present last Wednesday as part of his BTech coursework wasn't up to scratch, according to his professor, say Vijay's friends.
Burdened already with the prospect of another year on campus, this
proved to be the final straw for Nukala. He never turned up for the presentation. He was found hanging from the fan in his hostel room in the evening, clutching his cellphone. Nobody is sure whom he made the final phone call to.
Most students HT spoke to are highly critical of the XX system, which came into being, according to faculty members, because IIT-ians were "spending too much time on the internet and the intranet." Faculty members say that attendance is often poor at lectures, which begin at 8.30 am, because students are up all night surfing the net in their rooms.
It was Nukala who had a year ago devised 'Umang,' the intranet service that practically all students on campus use to share software. Although a low rank in the joint entrance exam forced him into engineering physics, even computer science students acknowledged his talent in their field.
But faculty advisors repeatedly told Nukala that he should focus on his academic subject rather than his subject of interest. "Once he
graduated, he could have easily have pursued information technology," said a faculty member.
Mumbai, November 21, 2005
About a week before he committed suicide last Wednesday, Vijay Nukala (22) got the worst news of his life: he would have to repeat a year at IIT. It wasn't because the final year engineering physics student wasn't good enough academically — it was because of the letters XX marked against his name.
Last year, the authorities at IIT, Powai, became extremely strict about enforcing a rule that meant final year students with less than 80 per cent attendance would be failed regardless of how they fared at the examinations at the end of a 16-week semester. In fact, they are not allowed to sit for the exams if there is a shortfall in attendance. And their names carry the XX appendage: two seemingly innocuous letters that translate to one lost year in a student's life.
But for Nukala, that wasn't all. Although he majored in engineering
physics, computers were always his first love: he was recognised as the presiding geek at Powai, inventor of the campus' most widely used intranet system, 'Umang'. But the computer science project he had to present last Wednesday as part of his BTech coursework wasn't up to scratch, according to his professor, say Vijay's friends.
Burdened already with the prospect of another year on campus, this
proved to be the final straw for Nukala. He never turned up for the presentation. He was found hanging from the fan in his hostel room in the evening, clutching his cellphone. Nobody is sure whom he made the final phone call to.
Most students HT spoke to are highly critical of the XX system, which came into being, according to faculty members, because IIT-ians were "spending too much time on the internet and the intranet." Faculty members say that attendance is often poor at lectures, which begin at 8.30 am, because students are up all night surfing the net in their rooms.
It was Nukala who had a year ago devised 'Umang,' the intranet service that practically all students on campus use to share software. Although a low rank in the joint entrance exam forced him into engineering physics, even computer science students acknowledged his talent in their field.
But faculty advisors repeatedly told Nukala that he should focus on his academic subject rather than his subject of interest. "Once he
graduated, he could have easily have pursued information technology," said a faculty member.
