‘Happiness’ website, wellness sessions for students at IIT-Madras

Three students have died by suicide in IIT-M since February which has led to wide scale student protests demanding more interventions.

Recognising that the emotional well-being of students is a concern following the Covid-19 pandemic, IIT-Madras is conducting wellness sessions and has launched a “happiness” website, said the institute’s director V Kamakoti on Thursday.

IIT-M has also set up its first international campus in Tanzania for which classes will begin in October 2023, director Kamakoti said during the event. (HT)

This come after recent cases of suicides of students on and off campus.

Three students have died by suicide in IIT-M since February which has led to wide scale student protests demanding more interventions.

“As we rebooted our campus after Covid, we are challenged with an unprecedented number of unfortunate events,” said Kamakoti.

“This coming year our focus will be to bring more and more happiness and peace to our campus. In this direction we have opened a website behappy@iitm.com. Happiness is a collective responsibility,” he said.

The director was speaking at IIT-M’s 64th institute day for which their alumnus and founder, CEO of Zoho Corporation Sridhar Vembu was the chief guest.

The director said that Vembu reflects India’s Amrith Kaal. Billionaire- businessman Vembu made an unusual move from Silicon Valley to Tamil Nadu’s rural Tenkasi in October 2019 from where he runs his global business with offices across the world - US, Brazil, Singapore.

Dressed in a traditional veshti, Vembu spoke of his days in IIT-M, Princeton University, Silicon Valley and coming back.

He encouraged the students to build engineering models that fit the real world. “That was probably one of the deepest lessons I’ve learnt,” Vembu said. “You cannot separate the model building which is theory from the practice of the real-world systems. Otherwise, your models will be detached from reality.”

Vembu, a Padma Shri awardee was appointed in an advisory role to the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) in February 2021. A year before that, Forbes had named him the 59th richest man in the country. “I don’t need any more money. So why am I still a businessman? Because our people need jobs,” Vembu said, encouraging students to build business so that India can employ its own people.

IIT-M has also set up its first international campus in Tanzania for which classes will begin in October 2023, director Kamakoti said during the event.