This news piece where a group of college students beat up two fellow-students who were strong contenders in a fashion show had all the alarm bells ringing.

The future of our country stands in jeopardy as the reason for crimes by youngsters are getting dangerously trivial.
In this case, what caused these 20 year olds to resort to such mindless violence is perhaps this current mantra: “success no matter what”.

While the world is getting increasingly competitive, the competitors themselves are displaying absolute disregard for fair play and tolerance.  It seems that all that matters is success; how one achieves it is irrelevant.   » Continue reading “Mumbai Mirror, page 8, Saturday, 30 Jan 10 – ‘Desperate to win fashion show, students assault two classmates’”

‘Getting married’ certainly holds its charm; why else would celebrities who live in their own little world where values have different meanings choose to marry instead of just living-in.
Yet, despite tightly crafted pre-nuptial agreements, we see several celebrity marriages publicly fall apart?

What then makes celebrity marriages different from ‘regular’ ones?    » Continue reading “29 Jan 10, Friday: various newspapers: celebrity marriages breaking up.”

A 14-year old, teenager kills his parents in a pre-planned, cold-blooded manner; stays overnight with the bodies playing video games and expresses no apparent remorse the next day.

Setting aside, just for a moment, the reasons why such a young child would commit such a heinous crime, I ask myself whether there are any early warning signs that could help us identify and help someone with such extreme aggression or should I just assume that the child had psychopathic tendencies and hence would have eventually done something like this?

Aggression amongst children is on a rise; blame it on over-exposure to media or lack of quality time with parents and loved ones; the truth is that children today are showing strong aggressive tendencies. » Continue reading “Mumbai Mirror, page 14, Thursday, 28 Jan 10 – ‘Boy, 14, kills parents over chores row’”

Heard this phrase on a popular English soap opera and it struck home.

‘Sorry’ – a much used and abused word. Does accepting an apology mean forgiving the person who caused us hurt or harm?
That’s the popular myth; when someone says sorry to us and we genuinely accept it, we forgive ourselves and that is the greatest gift. » Continue reading “27 Jan 10, Wednesday: “when we get it right, ‘sorry’ is the greatest redemption”.”

Adjustment disorders and stress – When a person’s capacity to adapt to a new scenario is overwhelmed by events, stress results. The event may be insignificant, if considered objectively. Even favourable changes like promotion (stress of coping with increased responsibility) and relocation (stress of adjusting in new environment) may cause stress.

» Continue reading “Maladjustment & Stress”

Ravimohan, 52; Ranjan Das 42 – two of the recent sudden unexpected death(s) that rocked the corporate world!
Handling insurance claims, it is now common to get cases of men (yes! Only men) who succumb to a heart attack between 28 and 35! And mind you these are proven after an autopsy shows a pale patch of recent infarction and most large branches of coronary artery with large atheromatous plaques.

Such instances of sudden death(s) bring forth the question – ‘you eat well; you exercise regularly BUT are you truly healthy?’

» Continue reading “Stress related sudden deaths”

A regular adult spends maximum time of the best years of his life at work; yes, do the math; in a 24-hour day, we spend at least 8 hours or more at work and that time spent carries with it STRESS – both physical and mental.

While the physical stress is visible and thus easier to deal with it is the mental or emotional stress that is the silent killer.
And often, emotional stress manifests itself in the form of physical symptoms such as, recurring headaches, nausea, aches and pains which do not have any pathological explanation; add to that irregular eating habits, erratic sleep pattern and lack of exercise and you have yourself a recipe for disaster.   » Continue reading “26 Jan 10, Tuesday: Stress at the workplace.”

I am sure this piece of news came as a welcome break to many of you BUT the sceptic in me is not getting mollycoddled so fast.
Let me first see the Boards first do the ‘smaller’ things, like modify the absurd exam timetable for SSC and HSC students (refer blog dated 24 Jan 10).  If they really care about students’ welfare, let them first come up with an exam schedule that has adequate gaps and thus allows students to write their exams at least in a good physical state.       » Continue reading “Mumbai Mirror, page 5, Monday, 25 Jan 10 – ‘State Board scripts new chapter in reducing classroom stress’”

Was overwhelmed with a wave of frustration when I read this article and hence broke my scared rule of ‘no-working-on-Sundays’ and decided to pour all the angst into this blog.
WHEN WILL WE LEARN? WHEN?

Just when the state boards of education seemed like they were waking up from their deep deep slumber, came this news that puts them back a few hundred steps. » Continue reading “Sunday Times, page 7, 24 Jan 10 – ‘No gaps in SSC, HSC exams give students sleepless nights’”

A heartfelt, detailed and candid view on the recent spate of student suicides in the country from one of India’s leading filmmakers, Karan Johar.

A large majority of parents I am sure, loved and applauded the film ‘3 Idiots’ and agreed that the message the film gave is the ‘need of the hour’.
Parenting however is tricky business with ALL parents wanting nothing but the ‘best’ for his child.

The issues with parenting however are deep-rooted; it is embedded deep in the Indian psyche and often as parents we are unaware of the pressure that we put on our children.  How can we aware when we haven’t seen any better? » Continue reading “Bombay Times, page 1, Friday, 22 Jan 10 – ‘Parent trap’”