EY employee death: Finance Minister calls for stress management lessons, Congress fumes

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has called for stress management lessons to be imparted by colleges and universities that will help increase the students' inner strength, comments made in apparent reference to the death of a young CA professional employed with EY that came under sharp criticism from opposition Congress which described her remarks “outright cruel.”

Addressing an event at a private medical college here on Saturday, Sitharaman referred to the death of the 26- year-old woman, without naming the victim or the company.

“What should families teach, whatever you study and the job you do, you should have the inner strength to handle that pressure and this can be achieved through divinity only.

“Believe in God, we need to have God's grace. Seek God, learn good discipline. Your Atma shakthi will grow only from this. The inner strength will come only with growing Atma shakti,” the FM added.

Congress general secretary (Organisation), KC Venugopal lashed out at Sitharaman.

“The ruling regime and the finance minister can only see the pain of corporate giants like Adani and Ambani, not the pain of the hardworking and toiling young generation where freshers like Anna are exploited by the greedy corporate system, if they even succeed in getting a job in this era of historic joblessness.”