Bring me back my Childhood!,

Bring me back my Childhood!

I am okay with being labelled a failure. I am not okay with being deprived of my childhood.

Megha Satapathy

It is late March. And since we are running a couple of months late due to the ongoing pandemic, it is the ‘Pre-Boards’ season for teenagers who are being looked in the eye by an imminent entry into adulthood. But for most of them, who should supposedly be excited about starting a new chapter in life, this is a season of immense mental stress and anxiety.

I am one of those teens. This isn’t my story. But this is our story.



“Engineering ya Medical?” 

“Ninety-seven percent? And how much did the topper score?” 

“Do remember how high the cut-off for that prestigious college was last year.” 

“Why exactly did you not apply for that coaching giant’s entrance test?” 

“Your cousin attends the largest school in the city and goes to three different coaching classes over it, and you can’t even sit at your study table for six hours?” 

“Don’t you understand that your exams are just a couple of months away?”

These questions may not make sense to the general reader. But for us, who have been at the receiving end of these questions, they make enough sense to be able to haunt us at night. And that is why it does not surprise us when the answer to all these questions ends with a simple “Let me sleep…” 

In 2017, when Nidhin, twenty-two, a student of IIT Kharagpur was found hanging from the ceiling fan of his room with a suicide note that said just those three words, a major part of the country mourned for him. But what if I tell you that almost every hour one such innocent Nidhin’s dreams are shattered? While school life is said to be the best time of one’s life, it is not only disappointing but also depressing that suicide is the leading cause of deaths among 14- to 26-year-olds. And the reason behind this disheartening statistic is not that we are ‘too sensitive to handle stress’ as claimed by many.

Picture this: Teenagers are rarely given the opportunity to speak up in important family discussions. In fact, most of the time we are not even included, because apparently, we don’t know enough. Then how do you expect us, sixteen-year-olds, to decide their careers, something which is going to affect our entire life? Why sixteen?

 Children are made to choose their ‘stream’ as early as sixth grade, if not before, courtesy to the blooming coaching industry. In our entire schooling life, you do not allow us to explore anything besides our studies and suddenly one day you ask us to choose what we want to do with our life? Tell me it isn’t ridiculous! Do you really let us choose?

 Because in India, despite there being a plethora of glorious opportunities, there are only two jobs that are prestigious enough: Engineer and Doctor.

Right? Few students have the inner calling to achieve something particular. When these children are compelled to choose from these minimal options early on, it only pushes them into intense confusion, which leads them into anxiety and the feeling of being a failure. And the children who do have a strong calling? They become victims of the ‘doctor/engineer trap’ and their dreams are killed even before they can take shape. In case you have been one of the lucky ones and do not understand why young people have to decide their careers so early, let me bring you that reason as well.

Thousands of students in identical attires pour into huge shiny buildings in the morning and emerge out of them only in the late evening; coaching classes are the new trend these days. As soon as we reach 9th grade, sometime even before that, we are put into coaching classes because they are supposed to be engineer/doctor-manufacturing hubs. On our first day, the sheer number of students scares us as the enormity of the competition hits. And by our first week, our minds are clouded with self-doubt and mounting anxiety. 

These so-called classes, that actually have made a business out of education, choke us. Yet we continue. Struggling through every single mark and each single rank, we continue, till our 10th grade starts to end.

That is when we are hit on the face by the truth that when it comes to auctioning education, schools aren’t left behind either! Entrance tests for 11th grade are conducted two to three months prior to Board exams by most, if not all, premier institutes. And we are asked by our parents to sit for most of them too. We squeeze in the preparation for these tests in between our normal schedule of studying for Boards, just so that we don’t miss that most coveted seat. Those of us who find our names in the list of qualified candidates, perform reasonably well with that boost of confidence. And those who don’t, invariably score worse in their Boards than they have the potential to. Notice the pattern yet?

And if you are one of those people who think that the problem lies with us and we should actually learn from toppers: toppers have it worse than the average student. The weight of expectations on them is much more than others. And as if the natural stress of performing well is not enough, they are taunted and rebuked for every mark they lose as well. With our teachers, our parents, everyone ultra-focused on success, nobody bothered to teach us how to deal with failure, and that it is okay to fail at times. And that is when stories like that of Nidhin enter the picture.

All our brothers and sisters, who chose to end their lives rather than live through this hell, were not weak. They were neglected. They might have appeared to have everything, but their emotional and psychological needs were not looked after. When all they needed was a helping hand, a pat on the back assuring them it was alright, we failed to be there for them and aggravated something that could have been prevented. When the matter was still at hand and professional therapy could have helped them, the age-old stigma associated with mental health came into play and they were left alone again. And when they had finally had it all, they were labelled a failure when it was the society, the system, and their parents who failed them. Yes, parents. No school, no coaching can be depressing enough when there is a warm home to return. But how far are we from that home?

We love our parents. Just as they would do anything for us, we would do anything for them as well. And they have every right to have expectations from us. But when they impose their humongous will upon us, as if the expectations we have from ourselves are not big enough, it hurts. Parents compel. They compare. Instead of supporting, they hover, and it hurts. When they ask about our marks and ranks before asking how we are, it hurts. Their intentions are not wrong. But in their attempt to give us a happy tomorrow, they snatched away our happiness today.

This story is not just about a single student or a single parent. This is about the entire system. Give us back our happiness. Give us back the thrill of running with our friends under the sun, without a single care. Give us back the joy of learning things instead of memorising. Give us back the time when we were students and not just pawns of this business that education has become. Give us back the relief of not having to worry that the next Nidhin will be someone we know. Give us back our childhood.

In case you think this issue is not crucial enough, you are part of the problem. Because this is an issue, which if not immediately looked at, holds the capacity to push the entire country’s future into darkness. The nation’s future is in our hands. And our future is in yours. Listen to our story. Hear us. Because we are the stars of future India. And how bright we will dazzle is up to you.

[1] https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/let-me-sleep-final-words-kerala-student-iit-kharagpur-he-hanged-death-60815

[2] https://ncrb.gov.in/en/accidental-deaths-suicides-india-2019




Megha Satapathy

Intern, Goa Chronicle

#ExamPressure, #ParentalPressure, #Coaching, #BoardExams, #Depression, #Suicide, #LetMeSleep, #Education, #Teenagers, #MentalHealth

IIT Kharagpur student found hanging in hostel room - Hindustan Times

IIT Kharagpur student found hanging in hostel room

The body of Gangireddy Hanimi Reddy (24), a second year student of M Tech (electrical engineering), was found hanging in his room at the Madan Mohan Malavya Hall in institute’s campus.

INDIA Updated: Oct 25, 2018 19:06 Ist

HT Correspondent

The body of Gangireddy Hanimi Reddy (24), a second year student of M Tech (electrical engineering), was found hanging in his room at the Madan Mohan Malavya Hall in institute’s campus. (Representative Photo)

An IIT-Kharagpur student, who hailed from Andhra Pradesh, was found hanging inside his room on Wednesday night although no suicide note was found immediately.

The body of Gangireddy Hanimi Reddy (24), a second year student of M Tech (electrical engineering), was found hanging in his room at the Madan Mohan Malavya Hall in institute’s campus.

“We have not found any suicide note. We are trying to open and examine his laptop and mobile phone to find out what led him to take his drastic step,” said East Midnapore district superintendent of police, Alok Rajoria.

“Primary investigation points at suicide though it can be confirmed only after the post-mortem examination is conducted,” he said.

Teachers and students at the premier institute said that no one saw him since Wednesday evening and the matter was reported with the administration. “The incident is unfortunate. His family has been informed. We too are trying to find out what led to this suicide,” said IIT-Kgp deputy director S K Bhattacharya. “He was a bright student,” said a student at electrical engineering department who did not want to be identified. “He betrayed no sense of depression.” Last year, three deaths of IIT Kharagpur students were reported. In January 2017, Lokesh Meena from Rajasthan had thrown himself in front of a moving train while in March, the body of Sana Sreeraj, an electrical engineering student from Andhra Pradesh, was found along the railway tracks. In April that year, Nidhin N, a student from Kerala studying aerospace engineering, had killed himself inside the hostel room. First Published: Oct 25, 2018 14:40 Ist

The Kota conundrum - Tribune India

Posted at: Dec 17, 2017, 2:12 AM; 

The Kota conundrum

The rising number of student suicides in Kota, the coaching capital of India, and various IITs and other elite institutions is not a story of failure of these youngsters, but of our system

According to the latest National Health Profile published by the government, one in three suicides in India is committed by those in the age group of 15 to 29 years

Aditi Tandon

It has been two years since Sumer Ram, a promising young student of medical stream and an MBBS hopeful, ended his life at a thriving coaching institute in Kota, the coaching capital of India.

Nineteen-year-old Sumer  had missed the selection for MBBS through the All-India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) by 20 marks in 2015. “My son wanted to improve his score to be able to get an MBBS entry in the 2016 edition of AIPMT. He had been at Kota for coaching for seven months, preparing for the next entrance exam. In December 2015 we got the news that he had committed suicide. It came like a bolt from the blue because everything was going fine. The institute people later told us that he had not attended classes for a few days. When we asked why they didn’t intimate us about our son’s absence, they said they couldn’t possibly track all students in the class all the time,” says a teary-eyed Hazri Ram, the deceased’s father, a resident of Nagaur district in Rajasthan. 

Hazri Ram is not alone in this anguish. Among the first recorded suicides was that of 19-year-old Nidhi Kumari from Jharkhand. Her father Rajendra Kumar is still grappling with the tragedy. She was studying in Kota for her MBBS entrance.

The latest suicide in this Rajasthan city happened as recently as December 7 this year and involved a young boy. Between 2013 and now, more than 56 students have ended their lives in Kota, unable to cope with the high-pressure preparation schedules for Joint Entrance Exam  (JEE) Advanced for entry to IITs and NITs and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for entry to top medical colleges.

The final push

Why are student suicides continuing unabated? Reasons are multiple. “Mainly because of the way the coaching centres and their schedules are structured. Annual expense to get a student coached in any top Kota institute is Rs 2.5 lakh. It’s a lot of money for most families. Returns are never guaranteed. But parents, in the hope of securing the careers of their children, take loans, sell properties and do anything they can to pay up. The pressure of this cost recovery is squarely on the student who is expected to study well and crack the test. A student’s individual potential for any discipline is secondary,” says Arvind Gupta, a Kota local, who has been tracking city-based suicides.

Each coaching class usually has 200 to 250 students with little personal attention being paid to anyone. Sundays are also not free as internal tests are scheduled on Sundays. The marks obtained in these tests form the basis to rank students within the institute. 

“A system of discriminatory teaching is followed in almost all top coaching centres in Kota, which focus on potential high performers who can bag top positions in JEE and NEET. The pressure on slow coping and low performing students is obvious,” says a parent of a student who killed himself. 

Alarmed by these deaths, the Rajasthan administration recently issued guidelines to Kota coaching centres asking them to ensure not more than 60 students in a class, mandating the centres to return the fees in case a student wanted to opt out and ordering them to institutionalise a system of sending SMS alerts to parents in case a student absented from a class for more than few days and without medical grounds. The present practice in Kota is to take yearly fee at the time of admission with no pledge to return the dues in case a student wants to exit.

Violatory practices

But all this is still being practiced in violation of the government guidelines as suicides continue and as does the business of these centres. The city has over 50 centres. Around 1.70 lakh students annually descend on Kota in the hope of making their dream careers. The commercial value of Kota’s flourishing coaching business is estimated at Rs 4,000 crore annually.

Why do students continue to queue up at Kota despite its reputation of a suicide capital? Reasons are clear. 

The mad zeal to crack the competitive engineering and medical entrance exams outweighs all considerations both for parents and students who, sometimes, have little option. 

When Varun Kumar, a Ludhiana boy, committed suicide at Allen coaching centre, Kota, on December 3, 2015, his father Balvir Ram was shocked. All Varun wanted was an edge to get enough marks to enter a government medical college which he had missed a year earlier.

“Coaching centres don’t exist in a vacuum. The ground has been laid by our faulty education system where there is a premium on cracking competitive exams while school education is ignored,” says Rajeev Kumar, a former IIT professor from Kharagpur. 

These Kota students often take admissions in the city’s dummy schools to complete their Class XII as they attend coaching classes on the side. Local administration is now cracking down on these dummy institutions.

A matter of aptitude

There have also been demands to mandate aptitude tests for students seeking admission to Kota centres so that they know about their potential at the beginning. This recommendation is part of the Kota administration’s guidelines to coaching centres but has not been followed strictly. These centres continue to enrol all students whether or not they have the skill and the aptitude to bear the gruelling preparation schedules. Naturally, weaker students fall off the academic track, many ending their lives.

The cycle of suicides doesn’t end here. It persists through the student life in IITs and NITs and various other elite institutions.

Scores of students have committed suicide after entering IITs because while coaching prepared them to crack the entrance, it didn’t prepare them to stand up to IITs’ real challenge of research and innovation. 

Mahtab Ahmed, an IIT Kanpur student, who killed himself some years ago, had scribbled on his hostel wall, “I hate IIT.”

An M. Tech student at IIT Madras, Nithin Reddy, had ended his life after being asked to repeat a course in the final year. Nithin had already landed a job and the repetition  would have meant foregoing the job.

The rat race for elite colleges

Even this year, many suicides have been reported from the elite central technical institutes, including that of IIT Kharagpur’s aerospace engineering student Nidhin M in April. He hanged himself from a ceiling fan. “Let me sleep,” was all he wrote before he killed himself.

Former IIT Kanpur Director Sanjay Dhande, who headed 

a taskforce to recommend measures to prevent suicides on campuses, feels disproportionate attention and focus on IITs and NITs as India’s top engineering institutions has created the pressure on students to get into these colleges.

The Dhande panel had suggested end of single-room occupancy in IITs and to share rooms to encourage bonding. Another suggestion was to reduce the internet speed on campuses so as to wean students off gadgets and allow them time to concentrate on lessons.

Eventually, a system of MiTR (a guidance and counselling unit) was introduced in IITs to help students cope with the stress of institutional rigours. 

The hidden signs

But even counselling services tend to miss signs of stress among students. The counselling wing of IIT Bombay  had failed to recognise a student Srikant Malapulla as a depressive. A regular at the counselling  centre, he had committed suicide.

“There is no single cause or solution for mental health issues that drive people to suicide. The high levels of competition are a major reason of stress which is why on this World Mental Health Day, the WHO had asked all employers to put the mental health of workers on their agenda. This applies to educational institutions also. Frequent demands of high performance, regular grading and the stress of campus placements in technical institutions takes a toll on students. It’s time to address the issue holistically right from reviving the worth of school education to stressing conceptual knowledge rather than test-cracking abilities which coaching centres hone,” says Dr Rajesh Sagar, Professor of Psychiatry at AIIMS, New Delhi.

Mental health experts, meanwhile, add that suicides are an emerging epidemic in India. 

Recent data reveals over 1.30 lakh suicides a year, with young being the most affected and males being more vulnerable than women.

“One in three suicides in India is committed by those between 15 and 29 years and two in three between 15 and 44 years. The younger population is more at risk,” says the latest National Health Profile published by the Government. 

It does not analyse the causes behind the trend but presents enough proof for policy makers to consider mental health implications of economic growth, competitive markets, shrinking jobs and disintegrating inter-personal and social ties.

IIT’s breaking point - Hindu Businessline

IIT’s breaking point

SHRIYA MOHAN

Uneasy silence: Attracting the crème de la crème of engineering students since it was established in 1950, IIT Kharagpur has in recent years witnessed a spate of suicides. Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

After five suicides rocked IIT Kharagpur this year, there is much soul-searching among its students and administrators alike on the reasons that are pushing bright and promising youngsters over the brink

According to his friends, Nikhil Bhatia could’ve been saved after he was found lying in a pool of blood minutes after he had jumped from the fourth floor of IIT Kharagpur’s Lal Bahadur Shastri building on October 21 this year. Aside from several broken bones, there was no head injury and he was still alive. The BC Roy Hospital on campus referred the injured final-year mining engineering student to Kolkata’s Westbank hospital, three hours away.

Fellow students allege that ultimately it wasn’t the suicide attempt that killed him, but an inefficient response system starting with a rundown ambulance and other medical equipment, and a medical staff ill-equipped to handle the emergency.

Bhatia, a bright mind and an introvert, had reportedly been showing signs of paranoia since July, upon entering his final year. “He thought people were out to get him. He would imagine that random people were following him. The things he said stopped making sense,” recalls his friend Satyam Jha, a final- year mathematics and computer engineering student. Jha helped set up a counselling session for Bhatia and he was admitted to the BC Roy hospital. But he was discharged a day later when his mother arrived to take him home to Mumbai. When Bhatia returned after a break, it had seemed to Jha as though his friend had finally left his demons behind. So the news of his suicide came as a shock. “He wasn’t the self-harming type,” Jha told BLink over phone.

Bhatia’s suicide is the fifth case this year at IIT Kharagpur, one of the country’s most prestigious engineering colleges. A video made by students and shared on the Facebook page ‘How Many More? — IIT Kharagpur’ lists the other four names — Lokesh Meena in January, Satish Mandava in February, Sreeraj Sana in March and Nidhin N in April.

What pushed these bright minds and others over the brink?

Help is not at hand

In the video, one of Bhatia’s friends, who was in the ambulance transporting the injured student to Westbank hospital, narrates the tragic sequence of events with his face silhouetted for anonymity. “The attendant inside the ambulance who was holding Nikhil’s hand, plugged with an IV, left it to answer a call on his mobile phone. It was then that the needle slipped out of his vein. When we pointed it to the attendant he seemed unconcerned and said, ‘Don’t worry, we’re reaching Calcutta in 10 minutes’.”

What followed was a series of misadventures nobody was prepared for. The ambulance took a wrong turn, broke down, and Bhatia’s friends had to flag down a lorry to continue the journey (still without any medication), only to stumble again after the lorry ran out of fuel midway. It took them an extra 35 minutes to complete the journey. Within minutes of arriving at Westbank, Bhatia was pronounced dead. “I stand by everything I said in that video,” the friend told BLink over phone, on condition of anonymity.

“The BC Roy hospital within campus is generally understaffed and ill-equipped. If you’re in a critical state you get referred to a better hospital in Kolkata, and you might not always survive the journey,” says Aradhana Kumar, a fourth-year chemical engineering student and editor of a campus newsletter.

Back in 2009, when another student, Rohit Kumar, lost consciousness after falling during a game of basketball, he was referred to a hospital in Medinipur, 45 minutes away, and died en route. The protests that had erupted on campus turned violent, leading to the resignation of the director Damodar Acharya. The administration had promised to improve conditions at the on-campus hospital, but eight years later little has changed.

Academic pressure cooker

When Amit Sachdeva (name changed), an undergraduate engineering student, approached the college’s counselling centre complaining of sleep deprivation and anxiety, he was immediately asked to reveal if he was homosexual. “The counsellor recommended mild shock therapy to cure me of homosexuality, even after I repeatedly told him that I wasn’t seeking any help for my sexual orientation. I have always been comfortable with my sexuality,” he recalls. When Sachdeva drew the counsellor’s attention to the American Psychiatric Association’s writ against any form of “treatment or corrective therapy” for homosexuality, the latter merely smiled and said, “This is India. It is okay here.”

There are four counsellors and one psychiatrist for the 10,000 students on campus. “The cases are handled so badly that students hesitate to even come forward with their issues in the first place,” Sachdeva says.

There have also been complaints of breaches in confidentiality. “In some cases where students had reached out for help to break free of substance addiction, the counsellors promptly called their parents to name and shame them,” a student said on condition of anonymity.

The campus recently tied up with Your Dost, an online counselling and emotional wellness service, for its students to report distress without having to reveal their identities. But can that be an adequate solution?

“Social media has taken a toll on relationships with the loss of interpersonal connections between individuals,” says Mayank Srivastava. A fourth-year student of mining engineering, he is also a student representative and the vice-president of Technology Students’ Gymkhana, helping organise technology, sports and cultural activities designed to act as stress-busters for the students.

“The pressure of living up to being an IITian is simply too much,” says Kumar, explaining that it is not just academic pressure but also the expectations of family and society at large — your placement, pay package, designation and even your lifestyle become mere displays to draw public envy.

“We try to tell students to not allow a sheet of paper to define their life” says Srivastava. But does the message sell in a system engineered to define you by your grade sheet? 

Addressing the different sources of anxiety for the students, he and his team explain to them that “life doesn’t end here”. “Suppose you don’t get placement, which is a very rare thing, there are still lots of options. The IIT tag itself can bail you out in any situation,” he says, trying to sound convincing.

A few months ago, as part of its efforts to de-stress students, the campus administration had, in consultation with students like Srivastava, decided to turn off the power supply in dorm rooms for a brief period, once a fortnight. This move was meant to coax students to step outdoors, where social activities were planned to give them a chance to interact more with peers, and break away from the isolation of their WiFi-enabled dens.

“But let’s face it, when one of your batchmates dies you don’t want to dance to Bollywood music,” says Kumar, who believes the problem calls for a more serious intervention than just enforced socialising.

At the same time, Srivastava blames the isolated environment of the gated campus for aggravating distress levels among the students, a point that was agreed on by all those this article had reached out to. “When your world shrinks to the size of your campus, which itself is a high-pressured environment, it is really important to make good friends,” agrees Jha, crediting such friendships with the power to help one get through the grind without losing sanity.

Cold silence

A letter purportedly signed by students of IIT-Kharagpur, posted on social media, alleges that during an open session held on October 27 at the college’s Netaji auditorium, the audience was “strongly warned and restricted to ask questions related to the counselling centre and hospital and nothing else”. The letter goes on to say, “It will be the fully orchestrated show of the administration. We wish that the IIT Teachers Association should not leave us alone and stand by us for truth (sic).”

All the college’s professors reached out to for this article declined to comment.

Registrar Pradip Pyne, the only official authorised to speak on the situation, termed the spate of suicides “unfortunate” and said it was “difficult to generalise the exact reason” before quickly adding that the university had taken several corrective measures. Asked to specify these, he requested “several hours to elaborate”. When pressed further, he talked about “the very good counselling mechanism and the wellness programme, which has a centre for happiness that promotes constant interaction and peer-to-peer connection”.

An email addressed to IIT Kharagpur’s Rekhi Centre for Excellence for the Science of Happiness went unanswered.

“We are initiating further steps. We want to do everything to fix the situation,” said Pyne, even as he declined to comment on the administrative lapses, if any, or the state of medical facilities on campus.

A lot of the anger on campus is directed at what the students see as the failure of the administration to improve the situation, but an equal share of that anger is also directed at society at large.

“As a society, we never want to confront mental illness. Perhaps Nikhil and the others could have been saved with more acceptance on the part of the families. It is as much a societal failure as it is of the campus administration,” says Kumar.

HRD Ministry to hold high-level probe into IIT-K students' death - DNA India

HRD Ministry to hold high-level probe into IIT-K students' death

IIT Kharagpur

Sun, 23 Apr 2017-09:24pm , PTI

"The official assured me that a team headed by a director of the ministry will be appointed to probe the cases of alleged suicides happening in IIT-Kharagpur," he said here.

The HRD Ministry will hold a high- level probe into the recent incidents of death of students in the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Congress MP KC Venugopal on Sunday said he has been informed by Additional Secretary R Subramaniam that a team, headed by a senior ministry official, would be appointed to look into the incidents and that the teachers from other IITs would be part of the team. The Lok sabha MP from Alappuzha in Kerala, Venugopal said it was conveyed to him by during his telephonic talks with the officer over the death of a Keralite student in IIT-K.

Nidhin, a fourth-year aerospace engineering student of IIT-K, was found hanging from the ceiling of his room on Friday. "The official assured me that a team headed by a director of the ministry will be appointed to probe the cases of alleged suicides happening in IIT-Kharagpur," he said here.

Venugopal said he has written to HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, seeking his intervention on the matter.

Venugopal said he was informed that the ministry has received an internal investigation report prepared by the IIT-Kharagpur on Nidhin's death.

The MP said he demanded a high-level probe in view of other such incidents in the IIT. Nidhin was the third student to commit suicide this year.

The IIT campus reported the first suicide on January 16, when Lokesh Meena from Rajasthan jumped on the tracks and was hit by a train at Jakpur station.

The second took place on March 30 when the body of a youth from Andhra Pradesh, Sana Sree Raj, was found on the train tracks, barely 500 metres from the IIT campus.

Nature therapy route to check IIT suicides - TNN

Nature therapy route to check IIT suicides

Somdatta Basu | TNN | Apr 23, 2017, 06.22 AM IST

KOLKATA: Suicide of Nidhin N, a fourth-year student of department of aerospace engineering of IIT-Kharagpur, at his Nehru Hall B Block ground floor room on Friday is not the only such incident at the institute. It was only in January that a third-year civil engineering student jumped in front of a train at Jakpur station near the campus. 

IIT-Kgp authorities are now initiating a number of measures focusing on nurturing a students' community connected with each other and the environment on the campus. 

To begin with, the semester students are gearing up to take a course on the science of happiness. As part of this course, students have already conducted "out of the box" projects with faculty and staff. 

Japanese program of "shinrin-yoku" or forest bathing (spending time in a forest) has also been adopted with a twist. It has been noticed that nature therapy heals depression. The counselling centre is working on a plan called "Life under the Canopy". Students will have to identify a list of 12 trees on the campus. Then they will have to take a picture with a friend under a tree and submit it. It's also part of the nature therapy. 

To promote happiness, IIT-Kharagpur had hosted Saamdu Chetri, the director of the Gross National Happiness Center of Bhutan, in April. Students, faculty and staff had a chance to listen to him impart some of the philosophy of the Bhutanese people. Happiness, the people in Bhutan feel, comes from spending time with each other and with nature. The country is known for its happiness quotient.

Top Comment

I am quite sure that Arvind Kejriwal has something to do with the application of this pseudo scientific method to check suicides in this institute of Higher Learning in India. For an institution set up on the Scientific Method, one would think that they would appoint counselors, therapists, and social workers to determine what is causing this spurt of suicides amongst students, and take remedial measures. Alas, instead of doing so, they are embarking on an untested, non-peer reviewed methodology to address this recent malaise that has overtaken their campus. One can only hope that they would not go the additional step and appoint witch doctors, soothsayers, faith healers, palmists and homeopaths, to actually treat those people who need real psychiatric attention! Arvind Kejriwal seems to have made his mark in his old alma mater!

andy jorgensen

"One of the important lessons in life to flourish is to be okay about getting help when you need it," said Sangeeta Das Bhattacharya, the professor in charge of the counselling centre. "It's a sign of strength. We are trying to promote help-seeking behavior, connectedness among students," she added. In some cases of extreme depression, parents of the students have been invited to stay on campus till the physicians give a clean chit to the students.

IIT-Kgp has a busy counselling centre and each year they witness about 3000 visits.

"Trees on the gorgeous campus of the institute date back to over a century. People can visit the centre or check the Facebook page for a list of twelve trees on campus," said a senior faculty member of the institute. 

"One of the important lessons in life to flourish is to be okay about getting help when you need it," said Sangeeta Das Bhattacharya, the professor in charge of the counselling centre. "It's a sign of strength. We are trying to promote help-seeking behavior, connectedness among students," she added. In some cases of extreme depression, parents of the students have been invited to stay on campus till the physicians give a clean chit to the students.

IIT-Kgp has a busy counselling centre and each year they witness about 3000 visits.

What's Wrong With IIT-Kharagpur? Yet Another Student Commits Suicide This Month - India Times

What's Wrong With IIT-Kharagpur? Yet Another Student Commits Suicide This Month

INDIATIMES APRIL 22, 2017

18K SHARES

A fourth-year aerospace engineering student at IIT-Kharagpur was found hanging from the ceiling of his room on Friday.

FACEBOOK/NIDHIN N

"Let me sleep," was all that the suicide note, found in his room, said. While police sent Nidhin N's body for post-mortem, the institute authorities declined to comment.

This is the third IIT-Kharagpur student to end his life on the campus this year, second within a month.

The police said Nidhin (22), who had come from Kerala, would set his alarm clock at 2 am every night to wake up and study. Early on Friday, when the alarm did not stop ringing, the other students in the hostel suspected something was amiss.

FACEBOOK/NIDHIN N

They went up to his room, but the door was shut from inside and Nidhin reportedly did not respond. When he did not appear even on Friday, the hostel authorities were alerted.

Some of the students broke Nidhin's room's window panes to find him hanging from the ceiling. Cops at the nearby Hijli outpost was called; the OC and the additional SP of Kharagpur reached the IIT campus, broke open the door to recover Nidhin's body.

                                             ANI

West Midnapore SP Bharati Ghosh said a probe was on and that the police were examining the suicide note. The IIT campus saw the first suicide this year on January 16, when Lokesh Meena from Rajasthan jumped on the tracks and was hit by a train at Jakpur station.

The second death took place on March 30, when a youth from Andhra Pradesh, Sana Sree Raj, was found also on the train tracks, barely 500m from the IIT campus. Though the family claimed it was a murder, police called it a suicide.

‘Let me sleep’: Final words of Kerala student at IIT-Kharagpur before he hanged to death - The News Minute

Death

‘Let me sleep’: Final words of Kerala student at IIT-Kharagpur before he hanged to death

22-year-old Nidhin was a student of aerospace engineering.

• TNM Staff
  Follow @thenewsminute
  
  Sunday, April 23, 2017 - 08:45

Twenty-two-year-old Nidhin, a student of aerospace engineering at the prestigious IIT- Kharagpur in West Bengal, did not attend his semester examination on Friday. Hours later, when the police broke open the door to his hostel room, Nidhin was seen hanging from the ceiling fan. They found a note that read- "Let me sleep."

Nidhin, a fourth-year student hailing from Haripad in Kerala's Alappuzha district, was found hanging in his hostel room in the Nehru Hall of Residence on Friday evening, reports Aishik Chanda for The New Indian Express. 

His friends told this newspaper that Nidhin, who was one of the most studious students in the batch, had been depressed over the past few months. After Nidhin failed to attend the exam on Friday, his friends grew suspicious. When they got to his hostel room, the door was found to be locked from the inside and Nidhin did not respond to repeated calls. When the hostel authorities broke the window panes to his room after being informed by the other students, they found Nidhin hanging from the ceiling fan. 

After the police arrived, they entered the room and recovered a one-line suicide note. According to reports, the suicide note did not mention the reason for taking his own life. 

According to media reports, Nidhin is the son of Nazar, a bank manager and Nadiya, an employee at the land acquisition department of the Railways. His sister is a student at ISRO in Thiruvananthapuram. 

Nidhin's suicide is the second such case reported from IIT-Kharagpur in the past 20 days, the TNIE report states. On April 1, a student of electrical engineering from Andhra Pradesh was found dead at a railway track near the campus. 

Earlier in March, a student of IIT-Delhi had jumped off the fourth floor of his hostel room and the police had then said that the student was in depression and unable to bear the pressure.  

IIT- Kharagpur student found hanging in hostel - DNA

DNA WEB TEAM | Sat, 22 Apr 2017-11:40am , DNA webdesk

IIT-Kharagpur student found hanging in hostel

A fourth-year aerospace engineering student at IIT-Kharagpur (IIT-KGP) was found hanging inside his hostel room at the campus on Friday.

According to the reports, 22-year-old Nidhin N was from Kerala. He used to set his alarm clock everyday for 2:00 am to wake up and study.

On Friday night, when the alarm didn't stop ringing, the students suspected something amiss and alerted the authorities. Later some of the students broke open one of the window panes and saw his body hanging from the ceiling of his room at Nehru Hall B Block.

"Let me sleep," was all that the suicide note found in his room said, reported The Times of India.

Reports said that Nidhin was the third IIT-Kharagpur student to end his life on the campus in 2017.

The Police are investigating the matter and to find a reason behind the incident.

Last month, the body of a third year electrical branch student of IIT-KGP, Sana Sri Raj (20) was found near the railway tracks near Turipara.

IIT-Kharagpur student found dead inside hostel room, investigation on - India Today

IIT-Kharagpur student found dead inside hostel room, investigation on

The body of 22-year-old Nidhin N, an aerospace engineering student from Kerala at IIT-Kharagpur, was found hanging inside his hostel room.

Indrajit Kundu

 | Edited by Ankit Misra

New Delhi, April 22, 2017 | UPDATED 12:47 IS

The body of an engineering student at IIT-Kharagpur was found hanging from inside his hostel room at the campus on Friday.

22-year-old Nidhin N, an aerospace engineering student from Kerala, was in his fourth year at the institute.

According to police, Nidhin used to set an alarm to get up early in the morning and study. Friday morning was no different, apart from the fact that the alarm woke up others in the hostel except Nidhin.

HIGHLIGHTS

• 1 - Nidhin was studying in the fourth year at the institute.
  
• 2 - Nidhin used to set an alarm to get up early in the morning and study.
  
• 3 - Police have sent the student's body for post-mortem and informed his family.

ALARM WOKE UP OTHERS 

This made the hostel authorities suspicious, and some of them broke open one of the window panes to find his body hanging from the ceiling of his ground floor room at the Nehru Hall. The police was soon informed and later broke open the door to seize the body.

IIT-Kharagpur has informed the family of the student and police have sent the body for post-mortem. The matter is being investigated.

This is the second such incident at IIT-Kharagpur in two months. Last month, the body of a student from the electrical engineering department was found dead on the railway track close to the campus.

IIT-Kharagpur student commits suicide; third incident in four months - ZEE News

IIT-Kharagpur student commits suicide; third incident in four months

West Midnapore Superintendent of Police (SP) Bharati Ghosh said a probe is on and they will also examine the suicide note.



ANI| Last Updated: Saturday, April 22, 2017 - 14:38

Kharagpur: A fourth-year aerospace engineering student of IIT-Kharagpur, Nidhin, was found hanging from the ceiling of his ground floor room at Nehru Hall B Block on Saturday.

The body has been sent for post-mortem, even as institute authorities declined to comment.

Police reached the campus, broke open the door, to recover Nidhin`s body.

West Midnapore Superintendent of Police (SP) Bharati Ghosh said a probe is on and they will also examine the suicide note.

This is the third student to commit suicide this year

The IIT campus reported the first suicide on January 16, when Lokesh Meena from Rajasthan jumped on the tracks and was hit by a train at Jakpur station.

The second suicide took place on March 30, when the body of a youth from Andhra Pradesh, Sana Sree Raj, was found on the train tracks, barely 500 metres from the IIT campus. 

IIT-Kharagpur student found hanging in hostel - TNN

IIT-Kharagpur student found hanging in hostel

TNN | Updated: Apr 22, 2017, 12.42 PM IST

HIGHLIGHTS

• A fourth-year engineering student at IIT-Kharagpur was found hanging from the ceiling.
• “Let me sleep,“ was all that the suicide note, found in his room, said.
• This is the third IIT-Kharagpur student to end his life on the campus this year, second within a month.

KOLKATA: A fourth-year aerospace engineering student at IIT-Kharagpur was found hanging from the ceiling of his ground-floor room at Nehru Hall B Block on Friday. 

"Let me sleep," was all that the suicide note, found in his room, said. 

While police sent Nidhin N's body for post-mortem, the institute authorities declined to comment. 

This is the third IIT-Kharagpur student to end his life on the campus this year, second within a month. 

The police said Nidhin (22), who had come from Kerala, would set his alarm clock at 2am every night to wake up and study. 

Early on Friday, when the alarm did not stop ringing, the other students in the hostel suspected something was amiss. 

They went up to his room, but the door was shut from inside and Nidhin reportedly did not respond. When he did not appear even on Friday, the hostel authorities were alerted. 

Some of the students broke Nidhin's room's window panes to find him hanging from the ceiling.

Cops at the nearby Hijli outpost was called; the OC and the additional SP of Kharagpur reached the IIT campus, broke open the door to recover Nidhin's body.

West Midnapore SP Bharati Ghosh said a probe was on and that the police were examining the suicide note.

The IIT campus saw the first suicide this year on January 16, when Lokesh Meena from Rajasthan jumped on the tracks and was hit by a train at Jakpur station.

The second death took place on March 30, when a youth from Andhra Pradesh, Sana Sree Raj, was found also on the train tracks, barely 500m from the IIT campus. Though the family claimed it was a murder, police called it a suicide.