‘Peer pressure driving students to suicide’

‘Peer pressure driving students to suicide’ Nikhila Henry TNN  Hyderabad: At least 17 students have committed suicide in corporate junior colleges in the last two years and more than a dozen students run away from their hostels every year, police records reveal. Peer pressure to excel in private residential colleges is said to be the main reason behind this.     The suicide of a 16-year-old Intermediatefirst-year studentof Narayana Residential Junior College in Madhapur on Wednesday underscored how academic pressure to study for 18 hours a day was forcing studentstotaketheextremestep.     “Suicides among students in Intermediate colleges could be due to a gamut of reasons starting with academic pressure. There are several cases of suicides caused due to failure in examinations,” Anurag Sharma, commissioner of police, told TOI.     Police had also lodged three attempts to suicide cases against students from three private colleges in the city in 2013, where scores of students have been trying to flee from residential facilities, where they are also forced to study for long hours, said the city’s top educationists and cops.     Alarmingly, it is not just Hyderabad which is getting rocked with these cases of suicides. According to police records collected from various districts in AP, where main branches of many private junior colleges are located, about 12 to 15 students go missing every year only to be sent back to the same college by their parents, who want them to prepare for competitive examinations.     For instance, Edupugallu, located between Vijayawada andGuntur,known as the coaching capital of Andhra region, had registered19 missing casesof junior college students, who had run away fearing examinations in 2010.     In another case, Vizianagaram, which hosts over 50 junior college coaching centres, has recorded about eight police cases filed by parents of missing children. Even in Hyderabad, the number of missing complaints filed by parents went up to six in the past two years.     The trend has been catching up for the past five years with the competition for admissions in IITs, IIITs and medical colleges becoming tougher year by year. The students usually go missing for just two to three days, however, indicating higher pressure on them.     The reason for this seemingly dangerous trend could be the pattern of studies in these colleges experts said.     “Students are admitted in bulk to these colleges but only those who fare well in the term examinations are given attention. The crème de la crème of students who join these colleges are given the assistance of best teachers to turn them into rank holders. The college management does not pay any attention to average or below average students,” said P Madhusudan Reddy, a city educationist.     In whatseemstobe a formof academic apartheid, students who join corporate colleges are screened during internal examinations and later on separated into groups.     “The best performers reach the central office campus of the private college where teachers give them much attention. Those who do not make it to this top list are left with substandard teachers,” said Achyuta Rao, a child rights activist.     Cause of suicides and the man missing cases could also be the rigorous schedule the students go through on a day to day basis, observers said. In residential facilities in colleges, students are made to study for about 18 hours including the classroom teaching sessions.     “Not all students can cope with this schedule,” a teacher from a private college in the city admitted. Junior college officials,however,saidthatin mostcases students who do not like the subject from the very beginning quit the course.  Times View Suicides by several young lives due to academic pressure to excel is a cause for serious concern. The government should immediately order an inquiry to find out the kind of pressure students are subjected to inside the residential colleges spread across Andhra Pradesh. Students who run away from campus must also be questioned to find out more about the grueling schedule.

more and more Indians stopped believing in God

‘More & more Indians have stopped believing in God’ Kounteya Sinha | TNN  London: The latest Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism has found that the number of non-religious people in India has risen.     As against 87% saying they were religious in the same survey in 2005, the percentage has fallen to 81% in 2013. In other words, a drop by 6% in seven years.     The survey also found a 1% dip in the number of people calling themselves atheists. In 2005, 4% people said they didn’t believe in God. In 2012, that had dipped to 3%.     Globally, the trend is similar. Religiosity has dropped by 9%, while atheism has risen by 3%. The report says there is a notable decline across the globe in self-description of being religious.      Pakistan is among the few countries which has seen an increase in the number of people who call themselves religious. The number increased by 6%.     Argentina, home to the present Pope, saw an 8% dip in people calling themselves religious.     South Africa has seen a 19% dip in those calling themselves religious, United States 13%, Switzerland and France 21% and Vietnam 23%.     A total of 51,927 persons were interviewed globally from 57 countries in five continents. In each country, a national probability sample of around 1,000 men and women was interviewed.     China has the highest number of atheists living in a single country with nearly 50% of its population describing themselves as nonbelievers compared to an average of 13% across the world.

Woman dies, delivers babe, returns to life

NEW LEASE OF LIFE Woman dies, delivers baby, returns to life Her Heart Stopped Beating 3 Weeks Before The Child Was Due, Revived After C-Sec Birth Houston: In a miracle, a 36-week pregnant American woman, who was technically dead as her heart had stopped, has delivered a ‘normal’ baby.     In February, Erica Nigrelli, a teacher at Elkins High School in Missouri City, was teaching English when she felt faint, placed her hands on a table to steady herself and then passed out.     Her colleagues immediately grabbed her. They kept her alive until paramedics arrived and rushed her to a hospital.      Nigrelli’s husband, Nathan, also a teacher at the school, was just two doors down. He rushed into the room.     “I opened the door and walked in. Erica was lying on the floor, she was foaming and making gurgling sounds and just staring up,” he was quoted as saying by CNN affiliate KPRC.     “My wife is pregnant,” he said. “She’s having a seizure! The baby’s due in three weeks!”     By the time 32-year-old Erica was rushed to the hospital, doctors could not find a pulse. Her heart had stopped.     Doctors delivered the baby by emergency cesarean section. Technically, it was a postmortem delivery because Erica’s heart was not beating, the report said.     But then something remarkable happened. The doctors turned to Erica and soon her heart started beating again.     Now three months later, doctors said her baby — named Elayna — is getting healthier.     “She’s just a baby,” said Erica. “A normal baby.”     It's a miracle considering how Elayna came into this world, doctors said, adding Nigrelli technically died, gave birth, and was brought back to life.     “Nine times out of ten most people die from the initial collapse,” said Erica. “It was literally a ticking time bomb, it just happened when I was 36 weeks pregnant.”     Now, the mother and the baby are both home and doing great, the report said. PTI

Myanmar state sets 2-child limit for Muslim

Myanmar state sets 2-child limit for Muslims Yangon: Authorities in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state have introduced a two-child limit for Muslim Rohingya families in an effort to ease tensions with the Rohingya’s Buddhist neighbours after a spate of deadly sectarian violence, an official said on Saturday.     Local officials said the new measure — part of a policy that will also ban polygamy — will be applied to two Rakhine townships that border Bangladesh and have the highest Muslim populations in the state. The townships, Buthidaung and Maundaw, are about 95% Muslim.     The measure was enacted a week ago after a government-appointed commission investigating the violence issued proposals to ease tensions, which included family planning programmes to stem population growth among minority Muslims, said Rakhine state spokesman Win Myaing. The commission also recommended doubling the number of security forces in the volatile region. “The population growth of Rohingya Muslims is 10 times higher than that of Rakhine (Buddhists),’’ Win Myaing said. “Overpopulation is one of the causes of tension.’’     Sectarian violence in Myanmar first flared nearly a year ago in Rakhine state between the region’s Rakhine Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya. Mobs of Buddhists armed with machetes razed thousands of Muslim homes, leaving hundreds of people dead and forcing 125,000 to flee, mostly Muslims.     Since the violence, religious unrest has morphed into a campaign against the country’s Muslim communities in other regions.     Containing the strife has posed a serious challenge to President Thein Sein’s reformist government as it attempts to institute political and economic liberalization. It has also tarnished the image of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been criticized for failing to speak out strongly in defence of the embattled Muslim community. AP

Salwa Judum founder Karma killed by Reds

Raipur: In the most lethal attack so far in Chhattisgarh, Maoists on Saturday hit a Congress party convoy in Bastar, killing top party leader Mahendra Karma, the man who started the anti-Naxal campaign called Salwa Judum, as police counted 17 dead, many among them well-known state Congress leaders, and several injured. 
    Former Union minister and ex-Madhya Pradesh CM Vidya Charan Shukla was seriously injured with three bullet wounds. TV images showed Shukla on the ground, his face blood-splattered and huge blotches of blood on his abdomen. He was first taken to a hospital in Jagdalpur and later flown to Raipur where doctors described his condition as “very critical”. Local leadets said party vice-president Rahul Gandhi was expected to reach Raipur late Saturday night before Shukla is shifted to Delhi by an air ambulance.
    State Congress President chief Nand Kumar Patel and his son Dinesh went missing from the spot after the attack and were suspected to have been abducted by the Maoists, sources said. They were travelling with Sukma Congress legislator Kawasai Lakma, who was injured in the attack. Nand Kumar and Dinesh jumped out of the car and were not seen thereafter.
    The group of Congress leaders and party workers were ambushed at Darba Ghati valley around 5.30pm as they were driving out of the rebel stronghold of Sukma in Bastar district towards Jagdalpur after attending a rally as part of Parivartan Yatra to kick off party’s campaign for the assembly polls. Police said that some cars leading the convoy hit land mines and then the entire convoy came under a hail of gunfire as more than 150 combatants ringed them.
    Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reviewed the situation with Congress President Sonia Gandhi and other senior leaders. The PM called up chief minister Raman Singh to offer para-military reinforcements. The CM had returned to Raipur, cancelling his Vikas Yatra, to hold an emergency meeting of the state cabinet. Karmaji is no more. We don’t have any more details”, a close relative told TOI over telephone. ‘Cops were well aware of Naxalite threat’ 
Raipur: Sources said Karma was dragged out of his vehicle along with his PSO and shot dead. A local television correspondent Naresh Mishra, who was at the remote ambush spot, said he saw the bullet-ridden bodies of Karma, former Congress legislator Uday Mudaliyar and more than 10 others. It took security reinforcements several hours to reach the spot as they had to walk for fear of landmines on the road leading to the spot. It’s standard procedure for Maoists to plant mines in and around such spot of attacks to targetsecurity forces rushing for rescue and relief operations. Former MLA and prominent tribal leader Phulo Devi Netam was among the wounded.
    The attack on opposition Congress leaders came a day before the bandh called by the Maoists to protest againsttheMay17killings of eight tribals, including three children, by the security forces during an anti-Naxalite operation. Mahendra Karma, who had spearheadedthecontroversial anti-Naxalite movement Salwa Judum since 2005, was on Maoist hitlist and survived several attempts on his life. Few months ago, Karma escaped unhurt when Maoists triggered a powerful landmine blast targeting his vehicle.
    Meanwhile, Congress blamed the state government for the incident alleging that it did not provide adequate security to the ‘Parivartan Yatra’, despite having specific information that the Maoists could target mainstream political parties and its leaders’ political campaigns ahead of the next assembly elections.
    “Police was well aware about a possible Maoist threat to both Vikas Yatra by chief minister Raman Singh and Parivartan Yatra by the Congress leaders. Yet it did not provide adequate security to the opposition leaders,” senior Congress leader and former minister Satyanarayan Sharma said.