Suicide of S. Anitha

Shanmugam Anitha (5 March 2000 – 1 September 2017) was a student from Tamil Nadu, India. She scored 1176/1200 in the 12th standard exams in the Tamil Nadu State Board. This would have secured her a medical seat, if only the State Board marks had been considered for admission. In NEET-UG 2017, Anitha secured 12.33 percentage of marks while she scored 86 out of 720 marks. The minimum eligibility cut-off for making it into the merit list was 40 percentage for students in the reserved category.

The minimum eligibility cut-off for making it into the merit list was 40 percentile ( [107 to 130] out of 720 marks ) for students in the reserved category, while it was 50 percentile for general category ( [131 to 697] out of 720 marks ). Anitha scored 12.33 percentage while admission was 14.9 for reserved and 18.2 for general categories for 2018 admission.

Admission to medical colleges is based on NEET rank calculated via percentile rather than marks.

On 1 September 2017, she died via suicide by hanging. Her death created a major controversy in Tamil Nadu where the National Eligibility and Entrance Test for medical admissions was strongly opposed. She has become a cause célèbre as a victim of the system. Provided by Wikipedia