He was cheerful, bright and took up many student-centric initiatives, recall friends
Even as hundreds of students took the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) on Sunday to get closer to their IIT dream, it was a sad day for the students on campus at IIT- Madras. Kuldeep Yadav, a second-year student of civil engineering, allegedly committed suicide on Sunday morning by hanging himself from a fan with a nylon rope.
The incident occurred in a ground floor room of the Narmada hostel at IIT-M, and was first noticed by Kuldeep's wing-mate. He and his friends immediately broke open the door and lowered the body. As Yadav struggled to breathe, he was taken to the IIT Hospital around 10 a.m. and then to Fortis Malar hospital in Adyar. However, he could not be saved and died around 2.20 p.m.
One of the students said: “The doctors, around noon, told us that there was still a chance, because his pulse was revived but it would take about six hours to know if he was actually out of danger.” The student was then taken to the ICU where he breathed his last.
The body was shifted to the Government Royapettah Hospital from where it was taken to the Kilpauk Medical College. A post mortem examination will be conducted on Monday morning.
Police suspect Kuldeep Yadav, the son of an Uttar Pradesh-based farmer Yashoda Singh, took the extreme step after a failed love affair. A note said to be written by Kuldeep was found by police in his room. “It is a romantic poem in Hindi written in the English script. It has words such as, Tere bina… meri haar. We had a language expert translate it for us,” said a police officer.
His mobile phone records are being scrutinised to see whom he had called last night. Kuldeep's brother has arrived in the city and his parents are on their way. Police said IIT- Madras had agreed to help the family take the body back home.
Originally from Etah in Uttar Pradesh, Kuldeep did his junior college at Aligarh Muslim University. Everything, according to his hostel mates was going right for him. “He had a girlfriend on campus but there were no problems between them. We always thought they were a happy couple,” said a friend. A bright student with a Cumulative Grade Point Average of 8.5, Kuldeep was keenly interested in his subjects and would often attend seminars out of his own initiative, according to a professor.
He was quite active in class, and would ask questions and upload material online to be shared by all, his friends recalled, adding that he was a sports buff too, interested in football and cricket. He was also the class representative and would take up many student-centric initiatives. “We didn't expect this from him, of all people. He was such a fun-loving person, cheerful all the time,” said a classmate.
“It was like any other Saturday night for us and he was a guy with no problematic habits. We thought he went for a movie yesterday, after he played board games with us,” the classmate added.
The rising number of suicides among students in colleges is, indeed, alarming. According to data provided by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, IITs reported two suicides in 2010, four in 2009 and five in 2008. In 2011, the figure was seven, three of which were by IIT-M students. To address the rising number of suicides among its students, IIT-M had set up a counselling unit with a tele-counselling facility to offer these services on an anonymous basis around the clock. The issue of suicides at the IITs, say sources, was on the agenda of the last few council meetings of the IIT.
Lakshmi Vijayakumar, psychiatrist and founder of SNEHA, a non-governmental organisation working in the area of suicide prevention said: “When such an incident happens in an IIT, it gets more attention because we see them as high performing institutes where there is an environment of high pressure.”
Except for IIT- Kharagpur that uses absolute scores, all other IITs evaluate their students on the basis of others' performance which does not foster shared learning and communication, she said, adding: “There is absolutely no need to put up results on open boards. This causes shame to a lot of students.”
The reason driving students to committing suicide may not always be related to academics. “Most students in IITs have slogged really hard to get there . When they come here, they feel there are many others better than them, which would not have been the case back home. Coping with those realities becomes difficult,” Dr. Vijayakumar said. Also, the issue of handling relationships is important. “Youngsters today are so used to getting everything instantly, right from their pizza to money, that they want the same in relationships too. Educational institutes should help them cope with the failures of everyday life.” she said.
Keywords: student suicide, IIT- Madras, IIT suicide
all sayings apart..d guy is no more...i wish those near him..had atleast bothered to talk to him whn he was in that state of mind..bt we r so busy with dominating and getting over others that nothing else is bigger than that..nt even someone's lyf..
blaming only the student and IIT is like blaming the nylon thread. the
changes to curb these kind of things should be brought form the grass
roots for that lots of changes in the society should take place. but the
society is not willing to change which is a very bad thing. i request
the government to stop the production nylon threads and fans.
will the Girlfriend be arrested now? The boy would have surely got arrested if the girl would have committed suicide ? If NOT , y ??
Real Education is the Ability to be BOLD in any situation in life...
When you are taught to be bold u think of coming out of a problem and move ahead in life...
Sorry for this Guy.. He had brains but not Courage.
i feel sad for his family and friends ... he should not have taken this decision. I am also an engineering student but when i have some problem , i share it with my friends and that's what does the work for me. NO tension. I think if he would have shared his situation with his friends , we would not have been commenting on this topic.... So what i want to say is that at the time of orientation , that is at the beginning of college life the seniors and the teachers should share their experience to them about college life...where they failed, the hard truths about the journey ahead and most importantly about relationships and academics....sharing this information will help them later when they will face the situation also it is the duty of friends that whenever someone is looking depressed or sad , they must take it out from him at any cost....because i felt it one time when this thing was disturbing me a lot and i told it one of my friend just by chance and i got over it in a few days.
I think it is good that THE HINDU showed some decency in NOT showing the facebook 'like' button in this article. Such a basic decency is lagging in many of the online dailies. R.I.P
No reason is enough reason to suicide. We all have problems in life in one way or other, financial, family, love and study etc. But does any of these reasons are big enough to suicide and put the family into suffering? Actually, a person committing suicide fail to see these things the moment he/she constantly keep thinking to end life. I have seen a friend taking poison and then running around for help. In educational institions, students/teachers should understand the value of life and limits to desire (be it performance, finance, love etc). Write down my words: "No Reason is Enough Reason to Suicide. Every Reason is a Reason to Live Full Life."
I heard one IIT Prof. telling his students that IITians are expected to do the work which a normal human being can't do. So here is the normal human being act rather than IITian act. . .My full sympathy to his parents...
Our system resists change. This can be found in any school/college/office nationwide. The competent people are happy with the situation and they don't want to lose their status quo. Let's break up the IIT-administration: It has faculties, staff and policymakers. Faculty don't give a damn about learning. They recite and revise their 'knowledge' on blackboards, rather than on paper in their chambers since the former is not boring and doesn't make them sleepy. The staff come to offices to earn money. As a rule they avoid responsibilities and initiatives. The policy makers are actually making money instead of policies, a typical and ubiquitous fact. So who cares for students? Parents are not able to impart life values to their children, since they are busy making money themselves. They believed putting their kids in good places would make them learned men. In 'good' places, students learn to cheat others (and themselves, unconsciously). Later in life they are no better than their parents.
Though this could be a suicide, other angles must also be investigated. Since investigation is still continuing, it is better not to resort to conjectures.
On other note, if he really committed suicide, it disappoints me because there was so much he could have done with his life if hadn't taken an ill-thought step.
There seems to be a lesson in his action.
It is important to be mentally strong to tide over little disappointments.
All said and done, nothing can bring him back. Rest in peace my friend.
It is really saddening to know about this incident. Everyone must realize that no issue (from love affair to telangana) in this world is as valuable as human life. We are all gifted to have got a human life to live. Any issue has a solution if it can be discussed and sorted out.
As Dr.Vijayakumar rightly put it,today's youth need instant results which may not be possible always. Today's technological advancements have put a barrier to relationships and socializing to a large extent. Everyone are interested only in virtual friends (such as facebook) rather than go out and socialize and maintain long lasting relationships.
There is nothing to match parental guidance. Treat your children
(particularly young adults) as friends and interact in a constructively
free manner. Encouraging youngsters to open up solves most of these
problems. Spending quality time with the youngsters is also very
essential in understanding their aptitude and capabilities. If
possible, one should also try and give the option to choose their line
of academics according to their capabilities.
Even though the educational system in India teaches(or forces) us to excel in academics the overall structure of the society does not teach us (in terms of organized approach) how to handle emotional problems. That is another reason why counselling approach does not work here as people do not like discussing their emotional problems openly/ or with someone unknown.
So probably general sessions need to be held to emphasize how important life is and how to cope with various challenges faced in educational institution. These could be made mandatory when joining the institute..
Only reason is the air of suicide in the campus ! When an institute
keep losing guys like this, as in the case of IIT-M, others
entertain the thought of killing self in subconscious state . The
stories revolving around one case is shifted to another and it
happens so very frequently that students lose the fear of death !
This ultimately gives them the courage and conviction to take
ultimate step ! Life is tough everywhere, girlfriends generally
dump, but we move on. Wonder how mentally tough guys like those in
the IIT can kill self at hats drop !
There have been too many suicides @ IITM in the past few years, and many more attempts which are not brought to news.
I request The Hindu to do a consolidated report, to stress on this alarming matter.
Very sad news that despite the availability of counseling and medical services on campus someone has resorted to this extreme step. Recently, when new norms were introduced on campus, some hot-blooded students protested saying that they should be treated as adults and the new norms amounted to moral policing and curtailing their freedom. If they are all adults with high amount of emotional resilience, why do we come across incidents like this ? I guess it wouldn't hurt for the students at IITM to be reminded that the primary duty of a student is to study. The IIT entrance system itself has come under great scrutiny in the last few years, with coaching institutes just manufacturing students who can crack a variety of previous question papers. That certainly does not help when in engineering, a student along with analytical ability has to practice disciplined method of studying on a regular basis. That prevents stress before the exams and leads to better understanding of concepts.
Believe me the real reasons for all these suicides in IITs are the
guys' batch-mates ...in other colleges students are normal
youngsters..but in our IITs most of them are just 'fame' or/and
'money' hungry parasites, they are concerned about their careers and
resumes so much so that they just do not care about anything else
..not even their so called 'friends'.
The article clearly says "failed love' as the reason for suicide. Why
are we blaming the IITs for it?
Really a sad news.A promising youngster give end his own life. I don't give a damn about IIT and his background. Its his own thinking/attitude and education system(considerable part) that leads to his grave. As Vijaykumar rightly said "Educational institutes should help them cope with the failures of everyday life." One has to THINK and ACT. This statement seems to be a house-hold term rather its the most important pointer for the whole life.Youngsters are now-a-days piled up hugely by peer-pressures and media/parents/well-wishers need to show the right path.
If you do not have the right in your creation you do not have the right to take your life. Kuldeep was a loser. My condolences to his parents and friends. Death is not the solution to a persons problems. Problems become problems when you stop looking for solutions and concentrate more on the problem. A person who kills himself for a simple problem is the biggest loser the world can see. Someone above said that this is a loss to India, I would say that India was saved from one person. A person who can't handle his own personnal problems, how is he going to resolve the countries. May his soul rest in peace...
I have a different take and am worried that you have sensationalized this news with a print space. Lot of people in various part of India commit suicide, but then to spotlight on this case from IIT-M is not worth the news. All because he failed in his love and I ask how many students have done that? These kind of stories is not worth the print. Anyway this kid was paid for (by his parents?) to study first and then fall in love later. Real absurd story!
LOSER, lost !
I consolided to his family members
Its very bad to IIT Madras
Bcz of pressure only he was died
Sorry to say this
Life is valuable , please don't end for trivial issues. In the curriculum
of students, they are taught about competition science and business. In
the current social life moral values and ethics need to be inculucated
which will make them string to withstand any tough situation and face
them boldy. Our prayers for Yadav and his family.
Dear friends!
Being an alumnus of IIT Madras, I know what it is like in my campus.
The single most important and prime reason behind the horrible
number of suicides in IIT campuses is the faulty curriculum! Yes
curriculum! Don't doubt me.
Every institution should have practical and regular sessions on
emotional stability / handling stress / understanding relations /
being practical / developing a positive and cheerful attitude etc
etc. ... where are they? IITs do not have any interest in all that.
The emphasis is on idiotic curriculum with no attachment to human
soul. Common, after all we are human beings and we need sincere,
lovable and attached form of education.
If such practical and effective sessions exist, students will feel
no hesitation discussing anything with the counselling units and the
problems can be curbed by significant percentage.
Alas we all focus on same age old useless curriculum with no human
factor!
Apparently, the suicide is not related to the programme stress.
Leaving alone the instant case, this is an age of intense competition and given the efforts put in by the students of IIT to get entrance into this instition, they are well aware of the pressure of the curriculum. A very good suggestion has been mentioned in the article that the grade obtained by individual students should not be displayed openly. However, given the politics of reservations, such instances are bound to take place for which IITs should not be held responsible but our politicians.
If we see the poem, 'tera bina mera haar',our IITian is not able digest failure in any aspect,might be in his love too.In love there is only love not success.success,& being succesful is regarded high in our world,and through success we are strengthining our individualities in this complex society.Results of life are becoming more important than life itself.No body are realising that only greatest miracle happened on earth is life,and we should realise it every moment of life and not at death.Remaining all things are trivial other than life.If anyone are with these sucidal thoughts,leave them behind and dont think your death will be more graceful than your life
Kuldeep could not accept defeat. In his terms he has played his last card to WIN, he wanted to
inflict pain on somebody who might have given him pain. This is against the law of living beings
to the act for the sake of survival. May his soul rest in peace. But never should this be the
solution to a broken heart. live through it - my advise to youngsters, and that will be your
victory - not succumbing to suicide - that is revengeful - not sportsmanship. I teach my son to
learn how to win - and lose gracefully - that is life. All said, we all have our own ways of dealing
with our problems. Yes, a sad day for his parents, his friends and the college - peace to all.
@ "The atmosphere inside IIT-M is very suffocating because of moral policing by the administration and some faculty. That is the reason why the "pressure" SEEMS so high."..Just cant resist laughing at this statement.This is purely a personal problem of that individual. If he cant take hard facts of love and life, why blame everyone else in the community
I personally regrets & astonished for such suicide attempts by the students due to love failures / farmers due to loans / wives due to domestic torture of mother in-laws (bitter fact mostly is that women’s killer/dominate of women itself). Government & Human rights organization should bring awareness & security.
While offering our heartfelt condolences to his family, we pray Almighty Allah make heaven the abode of the departed soul and bless the bereaved family with patience and strength to bear this irreparable loss.
We are to God, and unto Him we return.
Students are already in mentally tension to cope with engineering courses as they have to bother for food first at IIT Madras. It is difficult to eat for 1 month at Himalaya mess. The Himalaya mess is given to one Contractor and he has been looting all the 6000 students.
The food items are too spicy, oily and mixed with previous day foods.
All students are forced to take such food as they have no alternative.
IIT Madras should split the Himalaya mess to 4 different units and give contracts to 4 different contractor (One from North, one from east, one from west) so that there would be healthy competition among contractor. The students will get better food and this mental agony for food can be removed. IIT Administration is very much silent over this important issue.
I have passed from State run/funded Government Engineering College. It is a standard paractice to put up results of the students on the main administration notice board for everyone to see !
All the students know each others results........ from the freshers to the final year student.
only thing is that the sucides of the students here are less and importance attached to it also less. As the college is in the state , the student studying here visits his house more frequently than that of IIT student....May be this is one of the reason the sucides in State run Gov Eng college is lesser.
Love Affair.... this has became a status issue in colleges now a days.... you cant help this people.
It is very much true that the education system has regressed very
much. On one hand the UNESCO aims in enhancing the system and in the
other hand we set a very restrictive and inflexible education system
which has deviated well from its core. The duty of the education
system is not only to transfer knowledge but it has also got the
responsibility to teach its student the art of living life. The
materialistic society in the present demands both the father and
mother in a family to work due to which, very early in the age of 2 to
2 and half they get their child admitted to pre-school from where for
the external pressure of society, relatives, collegues, neighbours who
are all not associated directly with the child, the child is set into
the race, where he is sent to tuition,coaching classes, special
classes, extra-curricular classes whereby he is completely detached
from the social and moral education which is to teach an individual of
what is life and how to live it socially.
This is loss of India..... You all agree.Who is responsible for this loss?
Today we need a society,where we can share our issues related to life,love,academics.....
College life is the age of transformation.
Son of a Farmer was going to write history of his intellectual talent. He could not get required love,that was needed him very much......
Was there any other option to transform that love into strength? May be by institution, By friends, Family,internet..etc?
Really sad news. Such a bright student with good academic record reflected by his CGPA and comments of his peers and teachers.The reason for suicide, if it was a broken relationship, makes it even worse. Why do such young lads do not think about their families before taking such an extreme step . We cant even imagine what his parents must be going through . Such extreme steps are not an answer to the difficulties that life presents . One needs to be brave and remember that No success is final , No failure is fatal , it is the courage to continue that counts.
When his brain is actually admired by many, his mind triggered him to
do brainless activity...
Very sad for the parents as he was an IIT guy.
really its very shocking that the number of suicide case is increasing every year in india. i think the institution and the government can do nothing in these matter obviously they should have a committee to tackle these kind of mishap in the institution but real problem is within ourselves.i mean we have to be more realistic approach in life,as we know that life is changing every day,every moment and every year which is creating more and more confusion so we are trying to find a happiness and success from these outside world which is impossible, we should analyse that are these kind of act is really gonna helpful for us,certainly no unless we are not contempt or genuine happiness within ourselves no girlfriend,no friend,no movies and no professional,can really help us. if we ignore our inner values of reality then nature will ignore us,so my friends these kind of acts destroying not our life but many whom we are closed with each other..
It is surprise to see that cream of students from India restoring to these kinds of methods to handle problems.
For this we need to blame whole lot of people and systems. We have failed completely in guiding the young ones in problem solving , social living and facing the worst. When it becomes too much they take their decisions which often proves to be painful for others.
Also the IIT grading system is also to be blamed it puts students against each other and robbed of the team works, camaraderie behaviors and each one becomes so self centered and that they don't help each other academically even in worst situation
Hopefully IITM will relook into the system of relative grading and correct the same at the earliest to avoid return of event in future.
The comment from Dr. Vijayakumar “Youngsters today are so used to getting everything instantly, right from their pizza to money, that they want the same in relationships too." has the nailed the issue. Tolerance/patience are all rare features in today's youngsters.
This is another reason for bribe, as they are willing to give bribe to get work done quicker than wait.
With Technology improvement, People are being asked to work more. Take Blackberry for instance, its just a tool to help in case of emergency, but its used as a regular email checking device taking out the life from us. When 3 people go for a coffee break, all of them would be checking their facebook rather than talking to the other person face to face, this again causes depression to build up slowly which is not being noticed.
Sorry if I had digressed
CORRECTION - in IIT kharagpur only in Maths dept one has absloute marking , otherwise it's relative
Orientation to the students is very much important in the present.
They must be taken from the illusions they hold during this phase in
their life. We have many suicide cases not only in the college level
but this situation of ending one's life starts in the level of 10th
grade. Not only suicide the act of many other violence is increasing
among the student community which calls for a re-checking of the
system. The danger of student community entering into negative
activities will increase unless an until they are oriented into a
changed education system which has an inclusive space for the students
too. The energy within the students at this phase life is more and the
system must design itself to progressively orient all those energy
into the system.
Students need to realize how much effort their parents might have put in before sending them away from home for good and better educational facilities available. Please understand about their condition prior to taking this kind of actions.
For the educational institutions, they need to employ at least one Psychologist and from time to time, students are to be assessed for their psychological condition, especially when they are staying in Hostel.
I can complain only our education system for this incident, because
they teach them only what the book has. Our education system only
bothered about result not about anything else than how they know which
right and wrong
Surprising and sad to see young students giving up their precious life
for some trivial things without even thinking about the repercussions on
the family.
Even before the news of the suicide of a CEG ian had died out, we have
another student hanging himself in the campus opposite i.e; IIT M.
There is a familiarity between these 2 cases. Parents, faculty and
friends of the 2 did not expect them to commit such an act. This shows
the glaring disconnect of student from most of the people he is
associated within the campus.
College managements have to find a way to continuously be in touch with
its students through college seniors, course faculty, hostel wardens as
guides or mentors.
Regarding Suicide prevention,one important issue Lakshmi Vijayakumar,
of SNEHA, points out here to be implemented is that: “There is
absolutely no need to put up results on open boards. This causes shame
to a lot of students.”
To have a complete analytical knowledge of an issue/case, group analysis
and effort is essential way to learn.We learn from the opinion and views
of our peers and colleagues. Comparative grading at Under Graduate
coursed has derailed our learning attitude.It must be banned at UG
level.It has gave birth to narrow focussed professionals.Why we are not
creating scientists and good research scholars?
A very sad day for the family and loss of another bright youth of India--Instant Gratification is not possible in this world if it happens it will not last long; the youth of India does not seem to understand that or willing to accept that "Bitter Truth" about "Life".
The atmosphere inside IIT-M is very suffocating because of moral policing by the
administration and some faculty. That is the reason why the "pressure" SEEMS so
high.
Needless to say, it is a sad incident. But, why bring the academic pressure argument here, when that does not seem to be the problem? Second, the last sentence demands the educational institutions to "help them cope with the failures of everyday life". What about the parents? Proper parenting is absolutely essential. This has to start very early and should continue for long. Educational institutions have certain constraints, which to a great extent, parents do not have. For instance, advicing on personal issues and enforcing certain level of discipline on campus are increasingly becoming misconstrued as interference with the individual rights of adults.
Everything, according to his hostel mates was going right for him. “He had a girlfriend on campus but there were no problems between them. We always thought they were a happy couple,” said a friend.
@ less than 20 age he has a girl friend. They are happy COUPLE, What they know about life and its importance?
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