214 - IIT-Madras student hangs himself - TNN

IIT-Madras student hangs himself

TNN Nov 4, 2013, 03.49AM IST

CHENNAI: A first-year student of chemical engineering committed suicide in his hostel room at Indian Institute of Technology-Madras on Friday night.

The 18-year-old student, Akshay Kumar Meena, from Kota in Rajasthan, was found hanging himself from the ceiling fan in his room in Pampa Hostel, IIT officials said. They said it was not immediately clear what provoked Meena to commit suicide as he did not leave behind a suicide note.

This is the third suicide of a student in an IIT Madras hostel in the past two years.

Meena joined the institution in July 2013. His friends and hostel-mates said they did not notice anything out of the usual in Meena's behaviour and they could not think of any reason why he would kill himself.

"He was very active in student groups and participated in events in the hostels," a friend said, requesting that his name not be revealed. "He was not bad at studies."

Meena made a call to his father at 8.30pm. "His father said there was nothing unusual about the call and his son did not indicate that he had any problem," an IIT-M official said.

Meena's friends found him hanging in his room when they returned to the hostel at 10.15pm, after Friday's weekly movie screening at the institute.

"His room was locked from inside. When he did not open the door even though we knocked on it for several minutes, we stood on a stool and peeped through the ventilator of his room," Meena's friend said. "We were shocked to see a rope tied to the ceiling fan."

He said the immediately informed security officers and the medical department in the campus. "But he was dead by the time they forced open the door," the friend said.

Meena was supposed to see the movie with his friends but he left the venue at 8.30pm, even before the film was screened. "His last Facebook post, along with his picture, said, 'I am alone, but I am happy'," another friend said.

"Police are still investigating the case," IIT-M dean of students L S Ganesh said. "We are shocked," he said. "He joined the institution barely three months ago. His friends did not observe any change in him and he was a fairly good student."

Police sent the body Royapettah Government Hospital for postmortem. Meena's father, Nanda Kishore, arrived in Chennai on Saturday. He will take the body back to Kota on Monday morning.

202 - Protests in IIT-M over a different hostel for freshers

Protests in IIT-M over a different hostel for freshers

TNN Jul 14, 2013, 04.16AM IST

CHENNAI: Nearly 100 students of IIT-Madras held a protest on the campus on Saturday, demanding that juniors and seniors be allowed to continue in the same hostel. Holding placards, they shouted slogans saying the administration was trying to create a culture akin to that in schools.

The institute, from this academic year, introduced a separate hostel for freshers "to prevent incidents of ragging". Several students said the rule denied them the chance to interact and bond. Others said their opinion was never considered before the rule was introduced. "The room allocation committee has three student representatives, but none of their views was considered," said a student representative who didn't want to be named.

"They say ragging is a reason, but there has been no incident of ragging in the past couple of years," said another student. The real reason, he added, was that the administration didn't want students to be independent. "Students here have a lot of say in non-academic things. This is a move to stop that."

IIT-M dean (students) L S Ganesh said the decision could not be reversed. "The Supreme Court has given strict directions to campuses to prevent ragging and we have to follow them," he said.

To counter this, students conducted an online survey and found, according to a pamphlet distributed by students, that more than 92% of the 1,062 responses were against it. "A decision cannot be taken on hearsay or unreported evidence. There has been no ragging of late and the number of first-year suicides in IIT-M has been zero for the past eight years," it said.

Ganesh partially agrees that it will impact interactions between juniors and seniors. "We have taken the decision considering logistics as well as other factors, including legal ones. We did anticipate such protests, but we respect our students. We heard their views," he said. The orientation for freshers is on July 23 and classes will begin on July 29.

201 - IIT-M life skills course for freshers from July 23 - Deccan Chronicle

IIT-M life skills course for freshers from July 23

DC | 21 hours 55 min ago

       Dean of students Prof.L.S Ganesh speaking to media at IIT Madras. -DC

Chennai: Most of the freshers who join the premier technical institution, Indian Inst­itute of Technology live out of the comfort of their homes for the first time. Also, most of the students slog hard to crack JEE and would have never faced failures before in their life. Thus, when they enter the institution and start facing the real world, things go awry.

Identifying these prevalent issues among students, the senate of IIT-Madras has approved the introduction of a ‘life skills course’ for first-year students as part of the curriculum from this academic year, starting July 23.

More than 800 students are expected to join the institute this year across various streams and the initiative is to provide the course for all these students in one semester, said Prof L.S. Ganesh, dean of students, addressing the media on the campus.

Prof M. Shivakumar, head of Mitr, the guidance and counselling unit of IIT-M, who would be coordinating the course, said the students would be given two credits for this course and maximum efforts are made by the committee to make it an experiential learning.

The professors said everything possible to enhance the living conditions of the students should be addressed so that they learn in a conducive atmosphere. “We believe that it would be one of an early attempts and first-of-its-kind to provide life skills course for such a large institute,” said Prof Ganesh.

The programme would also have activities related to gender diversity, workplace issues, crisis response training like fire-fighting techniques and outbound experiential learning.

200 - Enough theory, IIT-Madras students get game for life - TOI

Enough theory, IIT-Madras students get game for life

M Ramya, TNN | Jul 13, 2013, 03.46 AM IST

CHENNAI: Students of IIT-Madras are authorities in game theory, structural engineering and everything else technical. But the institute wants them to sharpen their social skills as well. If it doesn't come naturally, the institute plans to teach them how. IIT-M will soon introduce a life skills course that will be mandatory for all first-year students. The two-credit course in the first semester will last 30-hours, and will be activity- and project-based, institute officials said. The institute will rope in experts from within and outside the campus, including alumni, for classes in specific topics. 

Other campuses have launched similar courses, but IIT-M dean of students LS Ganesh believes this is the first time that any university will attempt to fine tune the life skills of students on such a large scale. Around 900 students will join the institute this month. "It's going to be a logistical nightmare," said Ganesh. 

Students will be grouped into 12 batches with 40 students in each, and the institute will have to come up with ways to hold sessions within 72 working days in the first semester. 

The courses are expected to help students develop affirmative thinking, deal with success and failure, relationships, regional and gender diversity, alternate sexual orientation, health and hygiene, substance abuse, time management, decision making, communication and social responsibility. 

At the end of the semester, the students will be evaluated on these skills using psychometric assessments and other tools. 

IIT-Kharagpur offers a few courses on similar lines, but they are not compulsory. Another initiative being considered by IIT-M is corporate-style 'outbound experiential learning' to promote team spirit and interaction among members of the student council. There has been an increase in the number of suicides at the IITs in recent years. "Several students face stress, and academics is the least of their problems," said Sivakumar M Srinivasan, head of IIT-M's guidance and counseling unit, Mitr. "Freshers are 17-year-olds leaving home for the first time and many of them don't know how to use their new-found freedom. When they enter college they are thrust into a class full of toppers and have to cope with issues such as peer acceptance." 

The IITs formed a task force under IIT-Kanpur chairman M Anandakrishnan last year to investigate the cause of the rise in suicides. The task force has made several suggestions and that are being considered by the individual IITs. 

IIT-Kanpur dean of student affairs A K Ghosh said the institute is focusing on improving parent interaction and attaching faculty members to mentor students during the duration of their stay on campus. 

The orientation for IIT-M students begins later this month.

199 - IIT-M to introduce 'life skills course' - Business Standarf

Press Trust of India  |  Chennai  July 12, 2013 Last Updated at 19:10 IST

IIT-M to introduce 'life skills course'

IIT Madras (IIT-M) today announced a series of student-related initiatives including helping them "process" failure and make them aware of sensitive issues such as gender and sexuality.

"Life Skills Course" will be an "experiential" curriculum that seeks to engage the fresh batch of 900-odd students in a variety of activity-based learning that will carry two credits of 15 hours each, totalling 30 hours.

The one-semester course is part of the premier technical institute's efforts to reach out to students who start preparing for an entry into this prestigious institute from Class nine onwards, LS Ganesh, Dean (Students), said.

He told reporters here that carefully selected experts, both from IIT and outside including alumni, will engage the students on a range of issues such as failure and a new-found independence. Suicide prevention will also be a part of the course.

With many IIT aspirants having never faced failure, such efforts will help the teachers enable the students "process" failure, he said.

Programmes and activities related to gender diversity, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) and workplace issues are also in the offing through lectures, films and panel discussions. Such efforts were aimed at making students aware of and be sensitive to such issues, he added.

198 - IIT resorts to life skills training to cut campus suicides - New Indian Express

IIT resorts to life skills training to cut campus suicides

By Express News Service - CHENNAI

13th July 2013 08:14 AM

L S Ganesh, IIT-M dean, addressing the media | Albin Mathew

The Indian Institute of Technology -Madras is all set to introduce a life skills course for freshers from the current academic year, which will begin from July 29, in a bid to check the rising cases of campus suicides.

As many as five engineering students ended their lives at the institute’s Guindy campus between 2011 and 2012.

The rising number of suicides reported from different IITs in the country resulted in the Centre setting up the Ananthakrishnan Committee to study the phenomenon in all centrally-funded institutions and come up with measures for prevention, according to L S Ganesh, Dean of students, IIT-M.

“The committee came up with several interesting recommendations,” he said.

Ganesh, who was a member, said the panel specifically looked into what could be built as an institutionalised system to help students cope with difficult situations. “In this regard, IIT-Madras has come up with a new life skills course, which will be part of the curriculum at the entry-level from this academic year,” he pointed out.

Addressing a press conference with Lt Col Jayakumar, deputy registrar (training and placement), and M S Shivakumar, professor, department of applied mechanics, here on Friday, the dean said the objective of the course was to address two components that comprised a student’s IIT-M tenure: living and learning on campus.

“We want to make our country competitive. We want a healthy, vibrant and stimulated student community on our campus,” he said.

Pointing to the steady increase in the student strength in the institute from 3,000 in the 1980’s to about 8,000 now, he said 900 freshers had enrolled themselves for various programmes this year. Hailing from different parts of the country, they are in the 17+ age group and have prepared for a long time to do well in the entrance examinations. Students who were top rank-holders in their schools, now find that they have to compete with students as good as they are. Some of them are living separately from their families for the first time. “There is also a new-found freedom, which they do not know how to handle,” he said, explaining their difficulties.

High expectations from parents, gender and relationship issues and technological distractions were other factors that added to their stress, said Shivakumar, who is part of Mitr, the guidance and counselling unit of IIT-M. “They have not seen failure and do not know how to deal with it,” he said.

What started as workshops and seminars last year to cater to the needs of the students evolved into a formal life skills course this academic year, Ganesh said.

The course, comprising activities, projects and workshops, would be taught by experts from different fields during the first semester and assigned two credits (30 hours). It would cover three aspects of living: self-dependence, inter-dependence and independence. With a rise in the number of women students, focus would also be given to gender sensitisation, he added.

197 - IIT-M to post counsellors in every hostel

IIT-M to post counsellors in every hostel

M Ramya, TNN Jul 12, 2013, 06.51AM IST

CHENNAI: From this academic year, students at IIT Madras will have a friend in need, a resident counsellor, round the clock. The institute authorities will also have an early warning system.

The institute is set to recruit 20 trained counsellors, one to reside in each hostel so that the 7,000 students can get help at any time. The initiative follows steps taken to help students handle academic stress and other pressures after an increase in the rate of suicides on campus over the last couple of years.

Dean of students L S Ganesh said the resident guidance officers would have a degree in psychology or sociology and possess good communication skills. "Mitr ” our existing guidance and counselling unit ” is gaining in popularity. But, the waking hours of students are not the same. And student volunteers are sometimes bound by secrecy that proves costly," Ganesh said.

The counsellor is expected to toe a fine line between alerting authorities and faculty about students on edge and serving the role of a confidante. "The challenge for the officer will be to establish trust among students," said Sivakumar M Srinivasan, IIT-M professor and head of Mitr.

There is a proposal to change the existing arrangements, which advocate separate hostels for undergraduates, postgraduates and research scholars. "We want UG students to be in touch with their seniors, who can assure them they've 'been there done that'," Srinivasan said.

The institute was among the first in the country to set up an online confession page in 2011, now popular on social networking sites. Revamping the guidance and counseling unit into Mitr has doubled the number of students reaching out when they need assistance. A 24-hour helpline in partnership with Medall Healthcare is also in service. Parents are regularly kept in the loop of the academic progress and behaviour of their wards, and encouraged to report trauma and history of mental illness in their child.

A task force set up last year to investigate student suicides at IITs and other centrally-funded technical institutes recommended various initiatives to guarantee the mental well-being of students. It suggested that each institute allot Rs50 lakh to provide psychological support to students. Committee chairperson M Anandakrishnan said, "All the IITs and NITs are taking measures along the recommended lines. We suggested the government set up an empowered committee to monitor the progress and give support. That is yet to happen."

All the IITs and NITs are taking measures along the recommended lines. We suggested the government set up an empowered committee to monitor the progress and give support. That is yet to happen.

Anandakrishnan | counselling panel head

164 - Suicide shocks IIT as therapy falls short - TNN

Suicide shocks IIT as therapy falls short

M Ramya, TNN Apr 10, 2012, 05.04AM IST

CHENNAI: A day after a second year student Kuldeep Yadav committed suicide, faculty and students of IIT Madras were still in shock, trying to come to terms with the fact that a life was lost despite efforts to counsel students.

"When I heard the news I was devastated because we had set up a system that has helped save many lives," said professor Sivakumar Srinivasan, chief advisor of Mentoring and Individual Transformation (MITR), the revamped guidance and counselling unit at IIT-M. Over the last few months, the institute has tried to sensitize students about education, social life and relationships on campus through MITR.

Dean of students L S Ganesh said the institute had segregated students into groups of BTech and dual degree students, postgraduate students and research scholars, and women students to provide the support each group needed.

Students are mentored by faculty members with a special interest in student welfare. A tele-counselling facility is active round the clock. Academic programmes are being configured to suit students.

He said that information flow was also being streamlined. "We got information about this student within five or 10 minutes. In 20 minutes, he was taken to a private hospital outside campus. It's sad that we could not save him," Ganesh said. Despite being prepared to provide support to students, the faculty admits that they are at a loss when such events happen.

The institute has facilitated individual counselling sessions for the students who tried to save Kuldeep. The girl who was reportedly close to Kuldeep has been sent home. "She has to with her loved ones now. We didn't want her to be disturbed by anybody. After a few days when she knows how to handle the issue, she will be offered the counselling services," Ganesh said.

The faculty said that the incident has pushed them to work harder to offer support to students. "For many it's their first experience away from parental care. We don't want to curtail their freedom. We only want to tell them how to take care," Ganesh said.

148 - IIT-Madras don assaults Express lensman - IBN Live

Chennai | Posted on Aug 22, 2012 at 08:20am IST

IIT-Madras don assaults Express lensman

A photojournalist of The New Indian Express was attacked by a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras for shooting pictures in connection with the suicide of a girl student at the campus hostel.

Lensman Albin Mathew was deputed to take pictures of the Sarayu Extension-II hostel where first-year M Tech student Nerugu Manasa allegedly committed suicide. That is part of professional work of any news photographer, but IIT-M’s Prof Prakash M Maiya had other ideas.

While Mathew was on his way out of the campus, Maiya and a bunch of security personnel intercepted him. They asked him to show the pictures he had clicked and insisted that they be deleted. Mathew naturally refused.

The annoyed professor and five security guards then got physical. While the securitymen pinned him down, the don punched Mathew’s face and rained blows on other parts of the body. Mathew sustained external injuries in the upper lip region and internal injuries in the right chest and the left rear shoulder.

The security guards then took Mathew to the IIT-M’s Administrative Building and detained him for about an hour until policemen arrived on the scene to rescue him after Express took up the matter with the police top brass. Mathew went straight to the Kotturpuram police station and lodged a complaint. He was then taken to the Royapettah Government General Hospital where doctors administered first aid.

IIT-M Dean of Students L S Ganesh later tried to pacify a bunch of agitated journalists and apologised for the episode, terming it as unfortunate.