India, June 10 -- When the Supreme Court appointed a National Task Force (NTF) to look into students' mental health concerns and prevent suicides, it termed student suicides in the country an "epidemic". The remark perhaps reflected alarm over the 65% rise in student suicides between 2013 and 2023. The National Crime Research Bureau pegs the rise in student suicides between 2014 and 2024 at 80%. The NTF's interim report reveals a much more sordid picture: 65% higher-education institutions have no access to mental health service providers, 73% lack full-time mental health professional, and fewer than 4% have a suicide-risk assessment. Almost half of the institutions had not conducted a faculty sensitisation workshop in the 18 months the pa...