The city of Kota in Rajasthan, once celebrated as a beacon for ambitious students aiming to crack India’s most competitive exams, is now a grim symbol of an educational system gone awry. The recent deaths by suicide of two students—bringing January’s tally to six—lay bare the systemic failures that have rendered Kota a pressure cooker of despair. Despite interventions by the district administration, coaching institutes, and hostel owners, the human cost of this relentless pursuit of academic success remains unacceptably high. Kota’s coaching institutes, famed for their promises of IIT and medical college admissions, attract tens of thousands of students........

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