Good news on the ragging front

The Supreme Court has come out with a very good judgement on the issue of ragging -- a practice that allows senior students to harass and intimidate (and sometimes torture) fresh students in our colleges. [J. Venkatesan in the Hindu, Dhananjay Mahapatra in ToI, Tannu Sharma in the Indian Express].

For the first time, the Court has made it mandatory for college administrations to get a First Information Report filed in a police station, irrespective of whether the victim files a complaint or not. It has ruled that failure to do this would be treated as 'culpable negligence'.

These are welcome steps. They are based on the report of a panel set up by the Supreme Court and headed by Dr. R.K. Raghavan (ex-Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation). V. Jayanth has an op-ed on this report.