No browsing after midnight for IIT Delhi Students

Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi has restricted the use of internet after midnight for students in hostels

IIT Delhi has recently taken a decision to prohibit its students from using the internet in the hostel premises between 1am and 6am. The institute, during these five hours, disconnects the internet facility available to students in their hostel rooms.

The reason, according to Shashi Mathur, dean, students , IIT-D , is to ensure that the academic performance of students does not suffer. He says, "The internet connection, which was available to students during the midnight hours earlier, would disrupt their studies. Students would watch videos or be busy on social networking sites; download movies or play games till late in the morning. Hence, waking up late and getting delayed for classes."

However, the internet facility will still be available to students 24x7 in libraries, labs and research rooms on campus. "Students, who need to use the internet for their studies or project work, etc, can use these facilities . Also, we have not restricted students from using their own wireless internet connections in their rooms during the night," adds Mathur.

Students, however, are not convinced. "We already have a restriction on the amount of data that we can download using the internet connection in the hostel. With the new restriction, we can't use the internet late at night. There are many students in the hostels who use the internet to study at night. We put forward our point of view to the authorities, but to no avail. Since the institute has not put a restriction on personal internet connections, I have to use one," says a second year student rooms, it's difficult to download e-books , which a lot of students use. The research rooms are located about 1.5 km from our hostels and are generally occupied by seniors , so it is inconvenient."

The decision to curb the Ravi Kumar, first-year student of mechanical engineering , says, "We understand that the institute has our best interests in mind, but without internet in the usage of internet in hostel rooms after midnight was first taken by IIT-Madras . Students of IIT-Madras are not allowed to use internet in the hostel from 1am to 5am. IIT-Bombay , too, followed suit.