Life took an unpleasant turn the moment Abhinav D (name changed) joined IIT Kanpur . A topper throughout school, the 18-year-old suddenly found himself struggling to cope in a class full of students equally bright or even sharper.Before long, he found himself spiralling into depression. A long stint of counselling later, Abhinav is faring better in his studies and is an enthusiastic participant in campus activities. Many others aren’t as fortunate as Abhinav.This year, seven students have taken their lives across the country’s premier technological institutes, an unsettling new high. While 5,857 student suicides were reported across India in 2006, the figure jumped to 7,379 in 2010, according to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau recently.Only the best and the brightest make it through the country's leading educational institutes. But this is just the beginning of the battle.Fierce competition and the burden of expectation — a great job and salary are seen as natural corollaries — have been taking their toll on young students.The issues range from family pressure, adjustment and relationship problems, placements and fear of failure. The good news, however, is, institutes are stepping in to provide support.From counselling cells to student and faculty mentorship programmes, extracurricular activities, changes in curriculum, rescheduling of classes or even giving students the option of switching to slow-track programmes, every effort is being made to ease their burden.Counselling sessions with qualified psychologists and psychiatrists with assured anonymity are par for the course at the IITs, ISB and other institutes of higher learning. IIT Delhi has recently started an intensive Student Mentorship Programme, where third-year students are assigned five to eight students from their hostels in the same department to have personalised interactions on all issues, ranging from academic to co-curricular, participation in extra-curricular activities and general problems.This is especially useful during the initial stay of the freshers on campus, where interaction with seniors is limited, and prevents ragging. Members are selected after an interview. Nearly a 100 mentors are selected for 700-800 freshers.“It’s a big help for first-year students, including those from small towns, to make a transition into college life,” says IIT Delhi's general secretary, students affairs council, Rachit Gupta.IIT Kanpur says has been offering extensive counselling services and has even been helping out other institutes, including building a template for IIT Gandhinagar.They have even taken the help of Dr Manas Mandal, director of the Defense Institute of Psychological Research , who has dealt extensively with issues of stress among soldiers. “For our 700-odd undergraduate students, we have assigned about 200-250 student guides from higher batches to help them with their orientation.Each student guide is again attached to a faculty guardian and all issues are dealt with in a very confidential manner,” says dean (student affairs) AK Ghosh. This apart, students are given the option of dropping courses if they can’t cope, and making up for it over the summer.Management schools are not far behind. At Xavier Institute of Management , Bhubaneswar, director PT Joseph teaches ‘EQ and Leadership’ as a mandatory foundation course.“Students are helped to identify their emotional problems as part of the course. There is a group therapy session with 10-12 students per session, which helps them build rapport with their classmates so they can help each other,” says Joseph.IIM Bangalore has also taken initiatives to deal with academic stress. “Students who are not doing too well are identified in the middle of the first year and put on a slow-track programme, so they can complete their course over three years instead of two.We are also looking at implementing changes in the grading system from next year,” says PGP chairperson Ishwar Murthy.At IIM Lucknow, director Devi Singh says the moment any sign of problem crops up, the institute gets involved through the student community and faculty. “Parents are informed in a discreet way and we get them over to spend time with the child. If necessary, we even let them take the student away for a few days.That apart, all IIMs have reduced pressure in the first year in terms of the number of courses,” says Singh. Students should be encouraged to participate in extracurricular activities, says VK Gupta, officiating director, MDI Gurgaon. “We have a lot of facilities including a gymnasium, golf, tennis, badminton and so on for students to destress so they can relax and enjoy,” says Gupta.But will all these initiatives ultimately help in curbing student suicides or stress? “Counselling and mentoring are very well, but you can’t take away from the fact that in today’s world, all of us are ambitious and institutes are constantly driving us to excel.It’s hard to maintain that balance sometimes,” says Vivek Nair (name changed), a second year student of the National Institute of Technology , Warangal.It’s high time societal mindsets were transformed, says IIM Lucknow’s Singh. “We refuse to recognise that stress is a problem; neither do we recognise the role psychiatrists have to play... As we become more urbanised, these problems are bound to increase. Creating instututional and societal infrastructure is a must,” he says.