In March 2025, the Supreme Court of India appointed a National Task Force 2025 ‘to address the mental health concerns of students and prevent the commission of suicides in higher educational institutions’ in the wake of an ‘epidemic’ of student suicides in the country. The Task Force was entrusted with the responsibility to study the underlying causes of students’ suicides, review existing laws, regulations and institutional mechanisms, and recommend preventive, remedial and reformative measures to deal with such an alarming issue.

In June 2026, the Task Force released its interim report to the public. The report is an insightful document that details the complex nature of challenges which students entering higher education face, especially those from marginalised backgrounds. These challenges include social and peer pressure, feelings of isolation, and wide-ranging discrimination based on gender, caste, disability, region, and language.

The report, hearteningly, does not confine itself narrowly to student suicides. Instead, it takes a broader view of various discriminations faced by students from different, marginalised backgrounds. In this piece, I will briefly sum up its findings regarding the status of higher education of students with disabilities.

These findings largely draw from a 2024 report by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled Persons (NCPEDP), which was based on a survey of 250 students with disabilities in higher education across five states and Delhi. The essence of the report was that inclusion is more symbolic........

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