3 Student Suicides In Kota In 5 Days: What's Driving It?

Three students studying for the IIT-JEE exams in India's coaching hub Kota have committed suicide in the past five days. The first was a boy on December 22, followed by a 17-year-old girl from Uttar Pradesh and then on Wednesday a boy from Siwan in Bihar, who committed suicide in his hostel room. This takes the total number of student suicides in Kota this year to 19. All the students were enrolled in the coaching centres that Kota is famous for - prepping students for the IIT and medical entrance exams. Each year about 14 lakh students give the IIT-JEE entrance exams and only 10,000 from the entire country make it - of these about 30 per cent are from Kota. But that does not mean Kota is a story scripted for success. In fact, many students from poor economic and social backgrounds make the cut, but cannot sustain it.