The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has constituted a committee to examine the prevailing atmosphere in the institute which so far has witnessed an incremental rise in the number of suicides.
As per the notification released by the Registrar's Office of IIT Delhi, on March 5, 2024, and duly authorised by the Registrar himself, Atul Vyas, appoints 12 members for further assessment of the situation for a tenure of three months.
The notice also mentions, "The committee will be provided with the resources including staff to help with the logistics, and will be provided access to all documents as needed, and may speak to all Students, Faculty and Staff as required."
The report accumulated will be submitted to the Director, read the notice.
Members of the committee
Dr Santosh Kumar Chaturvedi who is the former Dean of the Department of Behavioural Sciences and a Senior Professor of Psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) has been appointed as the Chairperson of the committee with Ravinder Singh, Consultant (Legal Cell) of IIT Delhi as the convener.
The other members are Dr Shobna Sonpar, a former counsellor at IIT Delhi; Dr Alok Sarin, a psychiatrist at the Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Science and Research, New Delhi; and Prof G Bhuvaneshwari, a retired faculty member at IIT Delhi.
The committee has also appointed two IIT Delhi alumni, Dr Rama Govindrajan of the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Bengaluru; and Mr Nishit Jain, Vice-President, Strategy & Operations at Amaha. Two members appointed from the institution were Prof Yashpal Jogdand of the Humanities and Social Sciences and Prof SV Veeravallu of Applied Mechanics of IIT Delhi.
The student members included Prisha Jain as the undergraduate (UG) student representative, Mahesh A Guthe as the postgraduate (PG) student representative, and Abhilash Dasari as the PhD student representative.
Increase in suicides rattled students
The subject of the notification read, "Committee to study the institutional processes and environment in the context of recent student tragedies." With the death of Varad Nerkar, the number rose to four in just a few months.
Students of the premier institution in an open house meeting had demanded that an external committee be formed to look into Nerkar's suicide.
Correlating to a similar event at IIT Madras, where students had demanded an external committee to be constituted for a PhD student, Sachin Jain's death, where after the delegation of responsibilities and the submission of the report, Jain's PhD guide was found guilty and was later suspended.
