89 - 23rd Nov 2010 -IIT Kanpur mulls steps to prevent student suicides

November 23, 2010
Lucknow: Alarmed by a spate of on-campus suicides, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur is toying with the idea of restricting round-the-clock internet access, which it says is one of the main causes of these suicides.

"Students spending the whole night surfing the internet often fail to do well because they either miss classes or are too mentally fatigued to understand what is going on in class. Their failure to keep pace with their studies led to the suicides," a senior faculty member told the sources on Monday.

However, the decision to shut down internet services after midnight in the Wi-Fi enabled campus can only be taken after being cleared by the IIT senate, institute registrar S.S. Kashalkar said.

The country's premier engineering school has witnessed as many as eight suicides over the past five years. IANS

87 - 21st Nov2010 - IIT-K to restrict use of Net by students - TOI

TNN Nov 21, 2010, 10.15pm IST
KANPUR: Perturbed over back-to-back cases of students committing suicide at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT-K), the institute authorities may put restriction on the round-the-clock internet facility available to the students on the campus during late night hours.

At present the students have freedom to access internet all through the day.

"This 24-hour freedom to the students of using the internet facility seems to be affecting their studies and leaving them fatigued. With incomplete sleep and lack of concentration in the classroom, the students fall in depression," said one of the faculty members of IIT-K, who was a part of a fact-finding team in one such suicide instance.

"Hostelers keep surfing the internet throughout the night. When they go for the classes, they are tired due to lack of sleep. Thus, they are not able to concentrate on academics. This leads to stress," said SS Kashalkar, registrar, IIT-Kanpur.

Therefore, soon the internet service provided to the students at their hostel rooms may be suspended from 12 in the midnight till 8 in the morning, he said further.

Kashalkar further informed that a proposal to this affect will be sent by the counselling cell to the faculty members and the student senate for approval.

Meanwhile, when TOI spoke to a few IIT-K students about the snapping of the internet facility, they expressed their disagreement over the proposal.

"Do you think imposing ban on use of internet during the midnight hours will stop students from committing suicide," questioned an MTech student while talking to TOI.

He further added, "Internet usage varies from student to student. For some it might be a source of entertainment only but for others it is of a great help in studies. Thousands of students on the campus make use of internet and banning it at the time of our studies is not acceptable."

Interestingly, there were several other students who were not in favour of placing ban on the use of internet.

"In today's age, our authorities are thinking of restricting the internet during the time when most of the students here study. It is surprising. This is not the right solution to prevent suicides from taking place here in the institute. The students in stress and depression need counselling service and help from psychiatrists and restricting internet will not give any good results," said another IIT-Kanpur student on the condition of not being named.

Though on the other hand, the IIT-K professors were on an opinion of restricting the use of internet for the students.

"If internet service is restricted during midnight, it will help students in focussing towards their academics during the class hours," said a senior IIT-K professor while talking to TOI