Students across [Mumbai] city schools will soon start their day by closing their eyes for 15 minutes and breathing deeply to keep stressful thoughts at bay. In an attempt to relieve the ever-increasing stress of students as well as the school authorities, the state education department has introduced compulsory meditation in all government-aided schools.

The Maharashtra State Council of Research and Technology (MSCERT) has introduced meditation sessions in the morning, for school teachers, headmistress and students between classes V to X. MSCERT director Shridhar Salunke says the council has initiated the move to help students relieve stress, boost self-confidence, improve grades and even cut down …

Dipti Sonawala: With a view to helping school students to de-stress themselves, the [Maharashtra] state education department has decided to introduce compulsory sessions of meditation in schools across the state.

According to officials, the new initiative — Mitra Upakram — will be implemented from the next academic year so that students are able to fight stress and stay mentally fit. The officials of state education department say this will help sensitise students and also help in improving their concentration.

Throwing light on the initiative, Dr Shridhar Salunkhe, director of secondary and higher secondary education, said, “It has been observed that the …

On the third anniversary of the start of the deadly attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that left 165 people dead, the BBC’s Rajini Vaidyanathan reports on some of the survivors who are preaching forgiveness in a newly published book.

The Mumbai 25 – as they were known – were in Mumbai on 26 November 2008 as part of a meditation retreat.

Two members of the group were killed in the attacks, but the survivors hope that showing compassion will bring something good from a terrible tragedy.

It was a last-minute cancellation that led Linda Ragsdale to travel from the US to Mumbai in November 2008.

She …

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Sharvaripatwa: The sudden death of chief fire officer Uday Tatkare due to stress induced heart attack last month has served as a wake-up call for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. The civic administration is now planning to send its senior fire officials on a 10-day Vipassana meditation course.

“The issue of high tension and stress faced by fire officials came to light after Tatkare’s death. In a meeting which was held just days after his death, we decided to send all senior officials and firemen for a 10-day Vipassana course so that they can learn to deal with stress in their jobs,” said S S Shinde, Joint Commissioner (Disaster Management). “In the first phase, about 25 senior fire officials will go for …

The last time US-based spiritual guru Charles Cannon and his followers were in Mumbai for a meditation programme at the Trident, they were “rudely interrupted by violent fundamentalism”.

Two years later Cannon is back to the city he “loves and remembers” along with 12 of his disciples who lived to tell the terrible tale of 26/11.

The group, which has been advocating the “rehabilitation and education” of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab instead of the death penalty, will hold a commemorative event at the Trident on Friday. They will also be launching the Indian chapter of One Life Alliance, a non-profit organisation that “responds with compassion to acts of terror”.

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Thirteen-year-old Naomi Scherr was to write an essay on her trip, an educational experience to India. She was seeking admission to a girls’ boarding school and this essay would have been part of her application. But Naomi and her father Alan, who lived near the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, United States, were killed in the 26/11 terror attack on the Trident Hotel here.

Alan Scherr, a former art professor, had come to Mumbai in June 2008 to scout a retreat for members of Synchronicity Foundation, a spiritual organisation. The group rate offered at Trident had worked out best, and so they were at the hotel at the time of the attack. Alan’s wife, Kia Scherr, 54, in an interview to …

In June 2008, Alan Scherr traveled from the United States to Mumbai in search of a place where his meditation group could hold its fall spiritual retreat.

One month later, David Headley, of the North Side, also traveled to Mumbai — but he was in search of the best place to kill as many people as possible.

Both men picked the Oberoi Hotel.

“They couldn’t have been there for more different reasons,” Alan Scherr’s wife, Kia, says now.

It was in the pristine, five-star setting of the Oberoi where Alan Scherr and his 13-year-old daughter, Naomi, were eating dinner the night of Nov. 26, 2008, when terrorists stormed in and began rapidly shooting anyone in their sights.

The father and daughter were slain in a …