Online Petition for the Deaths at IITK

Association for India's Development is running an online petition to get compensation for the family of the people who died recently at IITK. Please sign it.

We are shocked to hear about the death of a laborer's child in Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur and the apathy of the administration towards this incident. The Institute's Health Center refused to admit the child on August 25, 2007 when he was bitten by a snake/scorpion, and knocked at its door, battling for his life. Within a week there was another death on campus -- Mr Udayvir Yadav, a worker who was not provided proper electricity connection to equipment he was using, was killed by electrocution on August 30. These two incidents suggest poor and exploitative working conditions within the IIT campus at Kanpur, India.

These are avoidable deaths that have occurred on grounds of an Institute that claims excellence in technology internationally. We expect that good technical institutions would provide technically safe and efficient working conditions in their campuses, as required by human rights legislature, born out of equal respect for the lives of the elite and labouring classes. These events expose a completely opposite picture.