Ragging in educational institutions, a widespread phenomenon that has ruined careers and pushed students to suicide, has grown to such a menacing level that Supreme (SC) Court has to issue directives to the Central Government in 2001 for its prevention. ‘Coalition to Uproot Ragging in Education’ (CURE) an NGO, reported 52 cases of Ragging in the last Academic Session of which 6 cases ended in suicide.
As per the directive of SC, the HRD Ministry appointed a seven-member panel headed by R.K.Raghavan – the former CBI director – to work out a strategy to curb the menace, which is becoming more and more life-threatening. The committee submitted its guidelines in 2007, which were upheld by SC in an interim order.
As per the guidelines, the concerned institute is to take proactive action to punish the guilty students and even expel them in fit cases. The affected student is also empowered to file an FIR if his Institution failed to take suitable action against the offender. As a further measure, the panel recommended advertisement & audio-visual publicity to make people aware of the consequences of ragging.
Till last year advertisements were released in newspapers. But as per an HRD official, “We realized that the main target – the college students – see television and movies more often than reading newspapers.” So this year Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity is going ahead to insert 20-second clips in Cinema halls and Television.