Ragging cases in country on the decline...

A post-mortem report showed brain haemorrhage as the cause of death. The case brought to the forefront the problem of ragging forcing the UGC to release Regulations on Curbing the Menace of Ragging in Higher Educational Institutions, 2009, which is now being followed by educational institutes across the country.

The law describes ragging as ‘doing an act which causes or is likely to cause insult or annoyance or fear or apprehension or threat or intimidation or outrage of modesty or injury to a student’.

The national helpline was set up in the same year. Students call the helpline and the operators, after studying the case, decide whether it needs to be registered. Once a complaint is registered, the college management is informed and an inquiry committee is set up by the college. If the complaint is more serious, like allegations of continuous physical or mental torture, the case is forwarded to the UGC or the Medical Council of India and two separate inquiries are set up. Eventually the college is also asked to register a police complaint against the perpetrators.

Going by the figures made available to HT, a total 3,342 complaints have been registered on the helpline from 2009 to 2015, of which 427 complaints were made in 2015. While the numbers are still large, it is a decline from 640 and 5,743 complaints received in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

Almost every year, the maximum number of cases is reported from Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa with 601, 412, 344 and 308 complaints respectively.

“Earlier, ragging was limited to elite institutions, but now it has spread to other polytechnic institutes as well. We conduct workshops with colleges, after much reluctance from the institute, only to find out that almost every student has faced some form of ragging but not many complain,” said Kushal Banerjee, from Society Against Violence in Education (SAVE), Kolkata.

In Maharashtra, maximum complaints have come from engineering and medical institutes in Pune and Nagpur. The complaints range from physical and mental torture to sexual abuse at hostels.

While most boys have complained about being physically tortured by seniors, girls have complained about being forcefully made to consume alcohol or drugs.

As of December 2015, 17 complaints have gone from across the state to the helpline. While colleges in Mumbai have been very strongly following the UGC diktat on anti-ragging laws, figures show that in 2015, of the calls made to the helpline from the state, six were from Mumbai. “The university has made its intolerance towards ragging very clear and colleges too actively create awareness about this issue. All complaints are taken seriously,” said MA Khan, registrar of University of Mumbai.

Some colleges are going beyond helplines to curb the problem. Recently, Lucknow University launched a new application — Rakshak — which can be downloaded on any mobile. Students can fill in their college enrollment numbers along with contact numbers of 20 people and in times of crisis can also make an SOS call. However, despite the awareness created on this issue, much still needs to be done, experts said. NEW DELHI: A flustered Sushma Swaraj, then information and broadcasting minister of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, had even refused to spell out what the Censor Board chief Vijay Anand had suggested to ‘modernise’ Indian cinema.

It was July 2002. And Anand, known for his highly-acclaimed films like Guide and Teesri Manzil, had given a written proposal to Swaraj to allow X-rated films in special theatres in India.

Although he travelled across the country before offering such drastic ‘guidance’ to Indian cinemas, those suggestions didn’t cut an ice with the first NDA government. At a press conference, Swaraj had said, “I am even ashamed of telling publicly what his proposals are.”

From the ‘neo-liberal’ Vijay Anand to the ‘ultra-orthodox’ Pahlaj Nihalani — the NDA’S stint with its controversial chairpersons of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), considered an obsolete body by many observers, turned a full circle on 2016.

The present chief, Pahlaj Nihalani’s outlook, taunted as “sanskari” by the social media, has forced the NDA government on Friday to set up a body under one of India’s most prominent film maker, Shyam Benegal, to provide a “holistic framework and enable those tasked with the work of certification of films to discharge their responsibilities