In 2019, at least 23 teenagers in the southern Indian state of Telangana had committed suicide after the announcement of school-leaving exam results.
Thousands of Indian young people die by suicide every year, according to the National Crime Record Bureau. In 2015, they made up 6.7% of all suicides, totaling to almost 9,000 deaths. Some experts, parents and officials blame the pressure to succeed in school.
Higher education in India is fiercely competitive. And school-leaving exams are crucial for securing a spot in good universities - they are seen as a ticket to a well-paying job and a bright future. Top universities also conduct independent admission tests, but students who perform well in those can still lose their seat if they fail their school-leaving exams.
In the days following the announcement of the exam results, shocked students and parents protested, alleging there had been errors in marking and demanded the exams be marked again.
As protests intensified, suicides by students who had failed the exams were reported from across the state.
A child rights group petitioned the state high court, which ordered the board to re-mark the answers of all those who had failed. The new results were announced on 27 May - the scores of 1,137 of the students who had failed were revised, and they were declared successful in the exams. One student who had initially scored zero marks in a subject, ended up scoring 99 when her answers were re-marked.
At the heart of the controversy was a private software firm, Globarena Technology, which in 2017 won the government contract to conduct the exam across the state for more than 970,000 students. It was also responsible for processing the final scores to announce results.