[Telegraph] AIIMS apartheid, cricket to class

Link to report

New Delhi, May 6: In the country’s top medical college, Sateesh Meena is not allowed to dine or play cricket with upper caste students. Neither, he says, is any other Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe student.

Daily life at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences resembles that in the country’s feudal outbacks and Apartheid-era South Africa, a government committee has discovered, confirming findings reported by The Telegraph.

“Some would just get up and walk away when I would sit at the table (in the mess),” said Jiten Dash (name changed, like Meena’s), according to transcripts of conversations the panel had with SC and ST students.

The committee interviewed 25 reserved-category students — half their total number at the institute — of whom almost all said they were told “not to play basketball or cricket by the upper caste students”. “Football and volleyball (that the upper castes don’t fancy) were the only sports we were allowed to play,” Meena said.

The committee claims “enough evidence” that the discrimination is “linked” to the “proactive role the AIIMS administration played” in fanning anti-quota sentiments on campus.

During last year’s anti-reservation agitation, AIIMS authorities had allowed student protesters from other institutions, too, to gather on the campus. No other central institution did so.

Most of those the committee interviewed alleged the teachers ignored Dalit students in class and deliberately failed them in exams, especially the practical tests.

“Even in internship, they are harassing (us)… now they are threatening us about the exams that are coming,” a medico complained against teachers. “Last year, out of seven students… six were failed — nearly by one or two marks.”

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had personally intervened to set up the three-member committee, headed by University Grants Commission chairman Sukhdeo Thorat, after this newspaper reported the campus discrimination.

The panel confirmed the finding that reserved category students were bullied into vacating their hostel rooms, leading to an SC/ST ghetto being formed on two floors of Hostels 4 and 5.

Each of the 25 interviewed said that despite a ragging ban, they were humiliated when they had joined. “They would call us to their rooms and order us… ‘tell us 10 reasons why you should get reservation… if you don’t we’ll beat you’,” one of them said.

“These incidents happen every year. Whenever a new batch joins they are treated like this,” a general category student confirmed.

The authorities ignored repeated complaints from the SC and ST students, encouraging their tormentors.

One Dalit boy who tried to join general category students in a game of basketball was thrashed, the committee noted. Another boy was told to “get out” by the cook when he walked into the mess where the upper castes dined.

The committee said the institute, despite requests, “has not taken any initiative to arrange remedial coaching in English, basic courses or any other spheres for SC/ST students as is required by central government educational institutions”.

Unlike many other central institutions, it lacks a grievance cell for SC and ST students. The committee has recommended that AIIMS set up an “equal opportunity office (EOO)”, answerable to the institute’s governing body and not the hospital administration.

The panel has also suggested that committees in AIIMS at every level — dealing with student, faculty or administration issues — have SC/ST members.

The committee last evening submitted its final report to health minister Anbumani Ramadoss.

[CC] Watch Tower: Ragging: Break vicious circle

Link to article

We must try to discipline our children to recognize reality and in so doing, we enrich our own understanding. Welcome their evolving independence and then only, we will be supported by the strength we have helped them attain.

Sanjay Dutt's movie: Lage Raho Munnabhai has certainly created thrills as well as the great impact in every section of our society of course due to movie's funny caption. The caption carries a different message (meaning) to different people and it is used freely according to the occasion and place.

In university and college campus, the smart, nay naughty- so called -senior students got the best opportunity to use, Lage Raho Munnabhai to their own advantage, just to harasses all freshers. Lage Raho Munnabhai, says one senior, while the other guy says..Jago..Jago..! Munna!! In order to make all freshers fully aware and caution them about their fate on the very first day of college. And thus the worst game of ragging begins with a stern warning along with all kinds of harassment and vulgarity. How he worst cruel joke becomes in nightmare which is well-known to everybody. Well done Munnabhai!.

Naturally looking to the increasing trend towards disorder, indiscipline and misbehaviour in Indian universities has aroused controversy and confusion in the minds of all intellectuals, administrators and parents alike. Indeed what is happening at universities today is not just passing commotion, which can be put down by firmer discipline only. As the causes for the present chaotic situation are many and varied, they are to be studied in right perspective and find out ways and means to improve it, before it goes out of control, instead of blaming the student alone.

No doubt, their misbehaviour on various counts and specially in ragging has not only created a terror in the minds of all innocent boys but it has actually threatened their lives by disrupting normal operations and infringing upon the rights of others.

The worst part is, ragging has now become a regular feature of ugly and crude method of so called entertainment with all sorts of vulgarity. Year after year several boys became the target of this unsocial element and are compelled to end their precious lives sheer out of disgust.

It is simply an irony of fate that instead of taking pity over these incidents, every year some new inventions of ragging are pouring through the ingenious brain of the present day youth and they are being carried out with the least idea of its repercussions in the long run. They totally forget that there is a lot of difference between `fun and ragging'.

The most inhuman way of ragging has come to light when all freshers are asked to be naked in front of all seniors at the point of knife. All these acts clearly go to show the extremity of ragging and the extent of moral degradation how the present day youth uses his perverted intelligence in making `fool of himself'. In fact all seniors do forget that `once upon a time' they were also freshers and had become the target of ragging and naturally they ought to have come to their senses, well in time and stopped ragging but ironically enough when they indulge in the same old game of ragging, with full of vigour, sheer out of revengeful attitude, then probably, ragging will have no end in itself, as it is a vicious circle.

Every fresher becomes senior next year and he is bound to think, that ragging automatically becomes his birthright being senior. In short the present day youth lives under obsession of pleasure and entertainment has become the real business of his life. Discipline is a forgotten word and self-restraint does not exist at all.

However, the question poses, whether can we afford to blame the student alone for the present state of affairs and hold them responsible for the mess: the answer is certainly a big no. But we ourselves, as parents and guardians, who are expected to mould their destiny, are equally responsible for all the crises, we are facing today. Because we are unable to understand their problems in right perspective and do not know the art of bringing them up properly, as no other task in the world is so complicated and challenging, as that of bringing up children.

In short, we must try to discipline our children to recognize reality and in so doing, we enrich our own understanding. Welcome their evolving independence and then only, we will be supported by the strength we have helped them attain.

But oh the whole trouble is that instead of realizing the fact that all parents and guardians are the real custodians of their wards and it is they who are responsible and equally expected to keep them under control, check their day to day activities, build their moral character and thus help them to mould their destiny, they indirectly encourage them to misbehave in all spheres of social life without knowing its repercussions in the long run. In short, we ourselves indulge our children in the delusion that we are being good to them. This is the only and primary reason why we are facing the crisis today.

Not only this but in order to escape the responsibility of bringing up their children in right direction they just go on blaming 1) the general education system prevailing in the country. 2) Administrative set-up of all educational institutions. 3) Loss of control over the student by the teaching staff in general and 4) the government's policies in particular forgetting totally that all educational institutions and government agencies are not run by the super human beings but by the persons amongst themselves only.

KD Kekre

[IndiaENews] One injured as student opens fire over ragging

Link to report

An undergraduate student was injured when a senior student of the college opened fire on the campus of an engineering college here Saturday.

Mukarram Ali Siddiqui, a first-year student of Deccan Engineering College, was injured when second year student, Mohammed Umeedullah Khan opened fire on students.

Doctors said the condition of Siddiqui, who received two bullets in the legs, was stable.

Khan allegedly fired six to seven round from his .32 revolver. The incident is seen as a sequel to the rivalry between two groups of students over a ragging incident.

Khan was arrested and police were trying to find out how he managed to obtain the gun.

According to the college management and students, Khan was notorious for ragging junior students on the campus and had even been suspended from the college in February this year. His suspension was revoked recently.

The incident took place in the afternoon. The college is located on the campus of Darussalam, the headquarters of political party Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM).

Eyewitnesses said that Khan suddenly appeared brandishing the revolver. He fired five rounds as other students, who were collecting hall tickets for the examinations, watched in disbelief. They said MIM legislator Afasr Khan and others caught the assailant and handed him over to police.

The incident led to panic in the area and the campus was closed.

'He was involved in several incidents of ragging on the campus and used to threaten others with dire consequences,' said a student on condition of anonymity.

The college is one of several educational institutions run by the Darrusalam Education Trust of MIM, which is headed by former Member of Parliament Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi.

[NewIndPress] 12 students suspended for ragging

Link to report

Friday April 20 2007 14:31 IST

BALANGIR: The allegation of ragging by a second year student of the Government Ayurvedic College here has led to the suspension of 12 senior students.

Principal of the college J Nath on Wednesday took the action after Narayan Mohanty, a senior professor of the college, who inquired into the allegation, found the students guilty. The 12 students, however, were not rusticated.

Bhagya Ranjan Dash, the second-year student of the college, informed the principal that some senior students were torturing him physically and mentally.

Bhagya, who hails from Balasore, also said he was assaulted in his classroom. Following the allegation, a meeting of the staff council was held on April 7.

Mohanty, in his report, said: "First, the students who indulge in ragging should be served a warning, then suspended and after that expelled. And even after that, if they don't mend their ways, police action should be initiated."

The principal said the 12 students have been suspended for a stipulated time period. They would be recalled if they mend their ways.

"Earlier, I had warned them but it failed to yield results," he added.

[KeralaOnline] SME ragging case: SC stays HC verdict

Link to report

New Delhi: The Supreme Court here on Friday stayed the order of the Kerala High Court allowing all the accused in the School of Medical Education(SME) ragging case back to college.

The case is in connection with the alleged sexual assault on a first year nursing student by the six of the accused students in the name of ragging and an attempt to destroy evidence and engaged in criminal conspiracy to cover up the incident by three accused.

The case was registered on November 12, 2005 and the investigation was reportedly completed within 65 days.

The first six of the accused were charge sheeted under sections 376 (2g), 342, 354, 366(a), 328 and 506(2) of Indian Penal Code.

In addition, the accused were charge sheeted under provisions of the anti-ragging act also.

Meanwhile, the SME principal, director and head of the Department of Psychiatry were charge sheeted under sections 120(b), 201, 202 and 218.

[GK] Senior Junior harmony

Link to article

SYED TANIA ANDRABI

“Seniors”-a term evoking mixed feelings: people ahead of you, your elders, demanding your respect, seeking your attention; but more than that, people who have been there before you, whose advice, love, and wise counsel helps and guides you, and when they leave the place, they leave with some memories unforgettable.

Seniors- ‘people to whom the juniors’ are seen hawking to for the previous years notes, or asking about the pattern of questioning of a particular teacher, or topics of importance and topics to overlook, or how to flatter a teacher, or what books to consult – they are the junior’s second teachers to everything.

Seeking admission in the University of Kashmir is a dream nourished by every student of our state, and so was it for me. It seems like yesterday – coming to this University and being ragged by the seniors’. Ragging as an interactive session between the seniors’ and the juniors’ wherein they get to know each other, blurring the line that separates them, is encouraging for the juniors’. However ragging also has an ugly side. There have been instances where the juniors’ have been maltreated by their seniors’ inasmuch that they stopped attending their classes and in the most extreme cases, committed suicide. Such incidents, instead of generating a comfort level between the two parties, initiate a fear psychosis in the juniors’. What needs to be understood is that the attitude of seniors’ in shaping the juniors’ is profound. They, on one hand can give direction, awareness, information, and knowledge to their juniors’, but on the other hand, can misguide them as well.

Bisma, a post-graduate student of English department on being asked if she was ragged by her seniors said, ‘‘I was so nervous that I could not utter a single word except for my name, but this did not irritate my seniors’, and instead they let me go. My seniors’ are really very helpful, and I in was helpful to my juniors’.”

Help and a few words of encouragement is what the junior’s need, but they don’t always get it. Here I can mention the experience opposite to it. A student from another department narrated his harrowing experience with his senior’s while being ragged by them. ‘‘After receiving a slap from one of my seniors’ on the very first day I joined my department I didn’t attend my classes for almost 15 days, and even now, when many months have gone by since that incident occurred, I feel the same trepidation on seeing that guy as I felt on that day.” Another student Muzaffer puts in, ‘‘I was made to do things that I was not comfortable doing, but had to do, for fear of the seniors’.”

Incidents such as these instead of bridging the gap between the seniors’ and juniors’ increase the rift between them. But there have been instances of good friends being made after an exchange of violence. Says Ishfaq, ‘‘When I refused to do what my seniors’ were asking me to do, I received two tight slaps from one of my seniors’. But now that guy has become my friend and he is the only one among my seniors who helps me whenever I need some guidance. Maybe the juniors’ should understand that it is their duty to respect the seniors.”

Respecting the seniors’ is what the juniors’ really need to understand and accept. After all it is the seniors’ whose guidance is something the juniors’ can’t do without. They teach the juniors’ how to bear the increasing pressures of the teachers’, a pressure that burns chunks of coals into diamonds. They inspire their junior’s by their aims and aspirations. After all it is with the seniors’ that the juniors’ have fun, share joys and sorrows – perhaps the most memorable days of their lives…..

Let juniors and seniors experience the joy of studying together. No need to be antagonistic. Joining hands will ensure a harmonious relation which lasts for good. Even if you are not physically together but you are bonded by some moments you love to remember. So why hate, why rag why not be friends.

(Syed Tania Andrabi is Second Semester student of Media Education Research Centre(MERC), University of Kashmir. She can be mailed at tania.andrabi@gmail.com)

[GK] KU wears festive look as freshers arrive

Link to report

MIR FAHEEM ASLAM
Srinagar, Apr 13: With the classwork for new entrants in different postgraduate courses about to begin in the Kashmir University, the campus wears a festive look these days. While freshers are seen busy in completing the admission formalities in their concerned departments, their seniors are busy in trying to corner them for introduction. “They (seniors) told me to introduce myself along with the family background,” said Zaffar, a fresher at the Political Science department. “The next day, I was cornered by all seniors and asked to sing a Kashmiri song.”

Zaffar is seconded by scores of other freshers as well. “I was asked to introduce myself in Kashmiri. And when I fumbled, the seniors asked to imitate a fisherwomen,” said Sana (name changed), a fresher from the Sociology department.

The seniors from some departments have also planned to organize special sessions for their freshers where they intend to seek a “comprehensive introduction” from the newcomers. “Once the classwork will begin, we are planning to call all our juniors to one spot and seek their introduction,” said Wahid, a final year student at the Media Education and Research Centre (MERC). “Meeting together is the only way we come to know each other.”

Pertinently, the university’s Naseem Bagh-which wears a festive look with the onset of spring-is playing a host to such events. The seniors and juniors are seen together in big groups, introducing each other amid sipping tea and soft drinks. “We don’t do any ragging here. It’s just an introduction,” a group of seniors from Law Department said. “We simply ask them (juniors) to introduce themselves completely; we don’t ask them to perform any vulgar acts.”
However, newcomers from some departments allege the seniors are “harsh” to them and “resort to ragging.”

“We were asked to measure the ground with a 25 paisa coin,” some freshers told Greater Kashmir. “We have no problem in introducing ourselves but it’s unfair when our seniors ask us to act like fisherwomen,” they added.

Though the varsity’s proctorial wing has not received any complaints of ragging so far, the officials have already geared up to anti-ragging campaign, if any. “We have already pasted some posters inside the university which carry the phone numbers of officials of the proctorial wing. If any student is harassed, we’ll initiate action against him,” an official at the Chief Proctor’s office said.