A week after Aishwarya Reddy, a II year BSc Mathematics student of the Lady Sri Ram College for Women died by suicide, the college's principal Suman Sharma said that the college will review its hostel policy and help the needy students with gadgets and data packs. According to her suicide note, Aishwarya ended her life owing to financial woes due to the pandemic.
Now the college's Students' Union says that it had shared all of these issues with the college administration way ahead and that none of their emails received a response. The union has also shared the findings of a survey that they conducted in September when the college restarted its classes online. The survey found that 39.4 per cent of the students did not have access to a stable internet connection and 27.5 per cent of them did not have laptops. The LSRSU General Secretary previously told EdexLive that Aishwarya unfortunately fell in both these categories.
"Out of those respondents who don't have access to laptops, 91.6 per cent of the students said that the college administration hasn't reached out to help them with the infrastructure," reads the survey report. It also noted that 95.6 per cent of the students wanted recorded lectures should be made available. "Had the issues that are mentioned in the emails were given due consideration and some action been taken on the same, we might not have lost Aishwarya," said the LSRSU.
