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Posted by on May 11, 2011 in India, TG Roundup

Shocking Statement by IIT-M Dean: Death of 3 Students “Statistically not Important!”

This is a followup to my post yesterday, Dying Young. Via Times of India:

When asked as to what the Institute in general and Guidance and Counselling Unit (GCU) in particular was doing to address the situation and to improve the response against such incidents, dean of students Govardhan M said, “Why are you always reporting negative news about IIT Madras? We also have the maximum number of patents but you didn’t report that. But you would want to report the death of 3 out of 5000 students which is statistically not important. Why don’t you go to other engineering institutes and find out how many died there. Why only IIT?”

Three suicide deaths in five months are “statistically not important?” How much more stupid and insensitive can one get in a situation like this? This dean is pathetic and has no business being the dean.

3 Comments

  1. What hypothesis test he was using ?

    • Yes Vamsi – as sad as it seems, that is the right question – suits for dark humor.

  2. This is appalling! Can this guy create life and say it is statistically unimportant to weather or not he takes care of it? Folks like this are too much into science and statistics and obviously oblivious of the human values that keep homo sepians apart from other forms of life!