If you can read these lines, chances are you've been there. You've pored over well-thumbed textbooks for hours, tried to forecast the contents of your exam in a nervous huddle with fellow test-takers, and -- later -- complained about the unwelcome intrusion of that one "out-of-portion" question.

For tens of thousands of Indian students, exams are the narrow bottleneck that lead to a place in the elite, to a broader pool of professional opportunities, or, at the very least, to a bit of upward social mobility. But for some, they are a reason to give up -- not on trying, not on persevering -- but on life itself.

Last week, the police said an 18-year-old girl in Mumbai hanged herself from a ceiling fan after failing three Class XII board exams. A day earlier, their colleagues in the capital said a girl killed herself after failing two Class X board exams. Two other high school students, too, allegedly committed suicide -- and they had passed. They felt they didn't do well enough.

And today, a 28-year-old UPSC aspirant is thought to have committed suicide in Delhi, after he was denied entry into an exam hall.

There are older headlines, each more heart-rending than the last. April 29: 'Worried over scoring low in Class 12 exam, UP girl commits suicide'. January 15, in Noida: 'Upset at failing in exam, Class XI student attempts suicide'. December 12, in Delhi: 'Class X student commits suicide over exam tension'.

Data published by the National Crime Records Bureau show that 2,646 people killed themselves in 2015 due to "failure in examination [category reproduced as printed]" -- many, many more than those who'd been driven to suicide by extra-marital affairs (785), cancer (827), divorces (391) and AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases (190). 1,511 of them were male.

These 2,600-odd people accounted for two per cent of all suicides in 2015, the bureau said. In 2014, the number was only marginally lower -- 2,403.

Government data shows that an alarmingly high number of people committed suicide in 2014 and 2015 due to failures in exams. (Photo for representation: Getty Images)

In April, the American magazine Wired published a report on student suicides in Kota, an exam coaching hub in Rajasthan. The title: "In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis."

The terrible human consequences of academic failures have been portrayed in mainstream Indian cinema. Who can forget the words -- "I quit" -- scrawled in black capital letters in a dorm room by an engineering student in the Amir Khan-starrer 3 Idiots? Joy Lobo hangs himself after his college's director refuses to extend a project submission deadline, meaning he won't graduate on time. "Give me another chance, I wanna grow up once again," he sings the night before he's found dead.

But what's the solution? Wired's report mentions a variety of remedies -- from "anti-suicide" fans to biometric scanners -- but points, citing evidence, to the efficicacy of two: Hotlines and "suicide prevention apps".

But it also acknowledges that such "stop-gap solutions" serve to "stop immediate loss of life, but don't address the underlying issue."

"Unless emergency initiatives are complemented by a full suite of mental health interventions and large-scale government initiatives", the report says, "they have limited effectiveness."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's book Exam Warriors teaches test-takers how to combat stress. (Photo: Twitter/@MagicalThakur)

The problem of exam stress has, in recent months, received attention from the highest levels of government - from its chief executive, no less. In February, at an event in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to students about a wide range of exam-related issues, including stress (He's also the author of Exam Warriors, a 193-page-long handbook which teaches test-takers how to combat stress).

But just weeks later, the government scrambled to deal with the fallout of a somewhat anxiety-inducing discovery: Two CBSE exam papers had been illegally made public, and students were incensed.

One parent who spoke to India Today at the time -- on the condition of anonymity -- said there should be a book on how to avoid exam leaks.

Inputs from PTI

WATCH | PM Modi turns exam warrior for students