The title is ungrammatical. It should probably be corrected to:
"To reduce student suicides by hanging from fans, institute in India removes fans"
To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans
61–70 of 146 posts
Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
However removing the fan ostensibly makes the room warmer, which increases the suicide rate. https://news.stanford.edu/2018/07/23/warming-temperatures-li...
They are replacing ceiling fans with wall mounted fans, otherwise non suicide death by heat exhaustion would increase. India is a poorer developing country, so actual AC in the dorms is still out of the question.
That's not true at all. Having AC in dorms is easily possible and affordable too. Centralized AC units comes to mind. Its there in all Government offices anyways.
The reason is different and it is even more silly. It has to do with generation gap. If you complain, as a student, about lack of any facilities the immediate response you get from the person in charge (typically of my parent's generation) is: "We used to study under candle light. See how weak you people are. You can't tolerate few hours of electricity cut". Now what answer can you give to this? It was very common when I was in NITK, Surathkal where we used to get cold water for bath (many would use electric heaters to warm water). When asked for installing geysers the typical answer would be: "This is coastal area. You should bathe in cold water. It is better for your health". But they had plenty of money to build 6 international standard mega blocks (each with 7 floors) but "apparently" no money to invest in ACs and hot water. Its a generation gap issue. "Let them struggle a bit. They'll understand harshness of life that way. Else they'll become lazy". Nothing to do with lack of money.
Note that this is not the case with private institutions which are much better equipped. Only with Government funded institutions. Which is a huge irony because the Government literally wastes money building new educational blocks and hostel blocks but doesn't invest a tiny portion of it in improving the facilities within those blocks. We just have to wait 1 generation more to fix these things. It is a mindset issue.
Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Suicide isn't logical or rational Sometimes it is. Not for most of the type of suicide we talk about here, I agree with you. But there are differences. Regarding firearms, what about suicide rates in Japan? Would they be higher with easier access to firearms? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan
> Would they be higher with easier access to firearms? Quite possibly. Is there a reason to think they would not? And yes, culture where suicide can be honorable or beautiful ending will likely have more suicides. Western tradition was treating suicide as a sin and stigma.
> Is there a reason to think they would not?
Yes, It could be dishonorable to use a firearm. A little bit of pain may make you look more manly, such stuff. The socio-cultural embedding of an an act that makes it logical and rational.
Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Suicide isn't logical or rational. It's almost always the result of a temporary state of mind, therefor it matters how accessible the means of ending one's life is. Easy and instant access to firearms for example leads to way more successful (and even just attempted) suicides because it takes less time to take out a gun and shoot than virtually anything else.
> Suicide isn't logical or rational Sometimes it is. Not for most of the type of suicide we talk about here, I agree with you. But there are differences. Regarding firearms, what about suicide rates in Japan? Would they be higher with easier access to firearms? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan
What do you think I meant by "almost always"?
And yes, I believe there would be even more successful suicides in Japan if the Japanese had easier access to firearms.
Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans
#65Thi will never cure the underlying cause of suicides, of course, but adding even slight obstacles has proven to have an effect on suicide rates. Many suicides aren't thoughtfully planned out, but are just a combination of motive and easy opportunity. Even adding something as seemingly silly as a moderately difficult to climb fence to a bridge can reduce suicide rates. This is a fine measure, assuming that it's follow…
I remember a story about an army that had a lot of suicides when soldiers would go home and take their gun with them. Not allowing them to take their gun home apparently really cut down on the suicides. Having a bit more time to think about it can save lives.
But of course they should still address the underlying reasons that make people consider suicide.
Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans
#66Measures like this show clearly that their concern is legal liability, not student welfare. Will it meaningfully reduce the number of suicides on campus? It might. But that isn't, and shouldn't be, the point.
Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans
#67Thi will never cure the underlying cause of suicides, of course, but adding even slight obstacles has proven to have an effect on suicide rates. Many suicides aren't thoughtfully planned out, but are just a combination of motive and easy opportunity. Even adding something as seemingly silly as a moderately difficult to climb fence to a bridge can reduce suicide rates. This is a fine measure, assuming that it's follow…
Before I read your comment, I came here thinking they are patching the symptoms rather than diagnosing and fixing the actual root cause.
Just understood, it's more important to reduce the easy of committing suicide before solving the actual problem. Thanks for the wonderful comment.
Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The institute is also said to have started to restrict student access to terraces and rooftops Apparently, they already thought about that.
Assuming teenagers and low 20 something’s are the similar the world over, they should have restricted access to terraces and rooftops for a variety of reasons unrelated to suicide. Alcohol and heights tend not to be very close friends, and my college restricted access to the latter as much as they could (the former was a lost cause).
Honestly my university giving us rooftop access for working on and setting up radio equipment was one of the most educational and enriching things I did there. Restricting access to rooftops for students seems like a terrible idea for education, where a lot of science literally happens on rooftops, whether with antennas or telescopes. (some students used the rooftop access to monitor fukushima reactor radiation in the atmosphere as well!)
Also: Never had a single accident or suicide for over 2 decades
Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Suicide isn't logical or rational Sometimes it is. Not for most of the type of suicide we talk about here, I agree with you. But there are differences. Regarding firearms, what about suicide rates in Japan? Would they be higher with easier access to firearms? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan
What do you think I meant by "almost always"? And yes, I believe there would be even more successful suicides in Japan if the Japanese had easier access to firearms.
> What do you think I meant by "almost always"?
Actually I did not consider what you meant with "almost always", because it is quite fuzzy and the value of that variable will may change over the discussion.
Re: To reduce student suicides by hanging to fans, institute in India removes fans
#70I think the students are right that it's a bad idea. They don't want to lose their fellow students to suicide, but are still against replacing the fans. They are young and inexperienced so maybe a simple majority would be easy to dismiss but this is 90%.