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'Virgin' Removed From Patna Medical College Form After Social Media Outrage

'Virgin' Removed From Medical College Form After Social Media Outrage
ANI

A marital declaration form that requires new recruits of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) in Patna to fill in if they were bachelor, widowers or, wait for it — virgin — has now been updated to drop the word after a lot of social media outrage.

On Thursday morning, medical superintendent of the medical institute, Dr Manish Mandal, ordered the word 'virgin' be replaced with 'unmarried' in the form, according to the Hindustan Times.

The form was tweeted out by ANI news agency yesterday and ever since the management is having to parry questions from reporters on what's an obviously intrusive requirement for employment at the college.

"The word virgin should not be seen only in a sexual context; it means unmarried women," Dr PK Sinha, medical superintendent, IGIMS, told the Telegraph. The male staff is also asked if they were "bechelor" and declare whether they have more than one wife. Sinha's assumption here is of course that unmarried women are not sexually active.

The director-in-charge of IGIMS, Dr SK Shahi, however, told the paper that the form "is a complete fraud", claiming that the original form did not have the word 'virginity'. Health Minister Mangal Pandey, while speaking to a TV channel, didn't help clear the matter.

He apparently said an employee's zodiac sign had to be mentioned on the form and nothing more, according to HT. Why one's zodiac sign is needed to help run a college of medicine, no one knows.

This is what the form looks like now.

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