[NDTV] Medical students suspended for ragging

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Press Trust Of India

Tuesday, January 30, 2007 (Chennai):

Twenty-one students of Stanley Medical College in Chennai have been suspended for allegedly ragging their juniors, college principal Mustaf Hamedkhan said on Tuesday.

These students had allegedly asked their juniors to come dressed as women on January 19, he told reporters.

He said he had summoned the parents of the suspended students before taking action, but nobody turned up.

Under the Prevention of Ragging Act, students could be imprisoned for two years with a fine upto Rs 10,000.

Tamil Nadu was one of the few states, which had banned ragging and enacted a law to this effect. This followed a suicide by a girl student of a college here a few years back, after she was ragged.

[MalaysiaNews] STU Defends Teachers, Parents In Fatal Ragging Case

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January 29, 2007 15:39 PM

KUCHING, Jan 29 (Bernama) -- The Sarawak Teachers Union (STU) came to the defence of teachers and parents in the death of a Form Four student believed to be the victim of ragging at Sekolah Menengah Teknik Bintulu last Saturday.

STU president William Ghani Bina said this was because the students believed to be involved in the ragging were mature enough to be aware of the capital punishment for murder in this country.

"This is not the time for us to point our fingers at the school or parents as the students involved are already mature, and murder is not an act of a good human being," he said when contacted by Bernama Monday.

He was commenting on the death of Matheus Mering Augus, 16, of SM Teknik Bintulu who was found unconscious in his hostel room and pronounced dead on arrival at Bintulu Hospital at 5.30pm on Saturday.

William Ghani said although the caring spirit was nurtured in schools and at home, some students overstepped the limits of ragging due to negative influence from outside.

He said the Education Ministry had introduced a lot of positive measures to produce a noble generation including the proposal to set up the main committee to address school issues which were discussed last week.

Expressing his shock over the incident, he said the death of a student due to ragging in Sarawak was a remote incident.

"This is the first time I heard that a student was killed in school in Sarawak," he said, denying there had been cases where principals or headmasters concealed criminal offences involving their students.

Metheus who joined SM Teknik Bintulu from another school on Jan 22, took part in an orientation programme and stayed at the school hostel.

--BERNAMA

[MalaysiaNews] New student found dead in hostel, ragging suspected

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29 Jan 2007
Sulok Tawie

KUCHING: A Form Four student who had just enrolled in a new school was found dead, believed to be a victim of ragging.

Matheus Mering August, 16, walked into SM Teknik Bintulu for the first time on Monday, and on Saturday night, he was found unconscious in his hostel room.

His body was bruised and swollen.

He was rushed to the Bintulu Hospital by a teacher and several students but was pronounced dead on arrival.

Police have classified the case as murder.

Bintulu police chief Superintendent Sulaiman Abdul Razak said they had held 18 students, between the ages of 16 and 17, for questioning.

Investigations reveal Matheus was bullied and ragged by his seniors during orientation. From his injuries, police are trying to find out if he was also assaulted.

"We will get to the bottom of this," Sulaiman said.

Police are waiting for the post-mortem results to determine the cause of death.

Sulaiman said the seniors had allegedly ragged the juniors without authorisation from the school.

"Ragging is never a practice in the school," he said, adding that Matheus was transferred from another school after completing his Form Three.

Bintulu Member of Parliament Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing urged the Education Department, schools, parents and parent-teacher associations in the division to make sure such incidents did not happen again.

[NewIndPress] Ragging: Girl attempts suicide

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Thursday January 18 2007 12:38 IST

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A first-year degree student of MG College in the city on Wednesday attempted suicide after she was reportedly ragged by senior students of her college.

The girl has been admitted to the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital. Hospital authorities said her condition was critical, but stable. A native of Tirumala in the city, the girl was allegedly repeatedly subjected to ragging by a few senior female students.

Two days ago, the verbal abuse turned physical and a senior female student reportedly broke her bangles. The girl tried to hang herself in the bathroom of her home on Wednesday.

The girl's mother spotted her in time and saved her.

[NDTV] SC committee's suggestions against ragging

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NDTV Correspondent

Monday, January 15, 2007 (New Delhi):

Despite the ban on ragging, the torture of many freshers continues in the name of plain simple fun.

More and more students are being driven to desperate measures by the seniors.

NDTV has exclusive details of how the Supreme Court plans to pull the plug on ragging.

Deepak, a young student from Danapur in Bihar, dreamt of joining the school of planning and architecture in Delhi and after much toil, he finally managed to get admission.

But soon after he joined, ragging at the hands of his seniors made him wonder if it was worth pursuing his dream after all.

Possible punishments

It was to prevent such cases and worse that the Supreme Court set up a committee under the chairmanship of former CBI director, K Raghavan, to suggest ways to clamp down on ragging.

The committee has now come out with a strong set of punishments, including jail terms varying from six months to three years for those guilty of ragging.

The use of vulgar SMSs and MMSs will also be considered ragging. Students found indulging in ragging will not be given university degrees.

"Punishment is essential. This is a warning," said Rajendra Prasad, committee member.

"This is really wrong. We will take urgent action," said Arjun Singh, Union HRD Minister.

The Supreme Court committee has also suggested making it mandatory to have a psychiatrist in every college to deal with the problems of students.

[ToI] Anti-ragging law

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NEW DELHI: Students who cross the line of decency while ragging their juniors could well find themselves behind bars in the near future. The Supreme Court-appointed panel to check ragging in educational institutions plans to propose making physical or sexual harassment while ragging a cognizable offence.

‘‘It has been observed that ragging often ends up in sexual or physical harassment for the victim. It is important for us to curb the menace at the earliest by formulating a law against physical or sexual harassment while ragging,’’ Rajendra Prasad, a member of the panel, told TOI.

Prasad said in the most serious cases of ragging, either the juniors are forced to strip or make obscene dance postures or indulge in sex. A law against such harassment will act as a deterrent.

The proposal seeks to empower the law to arrest perpetrators of such offences without warrant. ‘‘Ragging mostly leads to sexual abuse or harassment. Therefore it should be made a cognizable offence. As of now, we do not have any hard law to curb it,”said Aruna Broota, clinical psychologist, who has been advising the panel.

Chiranjeevi's new movie on ragging?

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Saturday, January 6, 2007 Pavan

We may see something on the lines of ragging in any one of Chiranjeevis forthcoming films.
Chiranjeevi expressed his thanks for an apt suggestion given by a fan. The fan asked Chirajeevi, You depict social responsibility with different themes. But why donot you work for a film that condemns ragging in colleges?Chiranjeevi answered, Yes! Ragging is certainly a social menace thats disturbing the Indian society on a whole. As it may not be possible to work for a film that condemns ragging in full length, some scenes or situations relating to that can be incorporated in films. I look into that aspect. Thanks a lot for an apt suggestion.

[Telegraph] Wanted: report on ragging, suicide

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MITA MUKHERJEE

Alarmed by the rising number of suicides among young boys and girls, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked Calcutta and Jadavpur universities to submit detailed reports of self-killing of their students in the past year.

The UGC — in a first such letter — has also asked the two institutions to state what steps they had taken to curb ragging on campus.

Officials said the UGC’s decision to collect data on student suicides and ragging from institutions across the country comes in the wake of a discussion in the Lok Sabha on how youths were being “drawn towards self-destruction” following failure to cope with academic and parental pressure.

A section of the Lok Sabha members had also urged the Centre to make a move to curb ragging. Despite a ban imposed by the Supreme Court in 2001, ragging continues unabated on several campuses across the country.

“On the basis of an instruction from our Delhi office, we have requested the authorities of Calcutta and Jadavpur universities to prepare a report on student suicides in the past year,” said Ratnabali Banerjee, an official of the UGC’s eastern region office in Calcutta.

Similar letters are also being sent to other universities in the state, she added.

Senior officials in the UGC said the institutions should “maintain accuracy” while compiling the facts, as any action by the government to curb ragging or suicide would be based on the reports.

Rajat Banerjee, registrar of Jadavpur University, said: “There was no incident of suicide at our institution in the past year. We have already sent our report to the UGC, stating the measures we have taken to stop ragging on our campus.”

As for Calcutta University, the UGC has also sent a copy of the letter seeking details on the students’ suicides and ragging to the 160-odd affiliated colleges.

University registrar Samir Bandyopadhyay said the process of gathering the data from the university and the colleges has already started.

Tapati Mukherjee, principal of Bijoykrishna Girls’ College and a member of Calcutta University’s council for undergraduate studies, however, said she had not received any instruction from the university about the UGC’s letter.