Renowned psychotherapist and management trainer Dr Girish Patel conducted a three our ‘stress management’ session at SM Shetty School in Powai recently.

The programme was part of an initiative by Andheri-Bandra regional committee of Bunts Sangha, a community based organization in Mumbai.

Source: THE TIMES OF MULUND-POWAI dated Saturday august 11, 2012 by Sudhakar Anchan
Speaking on the occasion C A Shankar Shetty, president of Bunts Sangha, Kurla said, “The seminar on ‘Stress Management’ is apt for today’s stressful lives. Dr Patel’s lecture will surely help us in distressing ourselves. The much traveled psychotherapist has given more than 5000 lectures so far across the continents. I thank our regional committee members for arranging this seminar.”
Dr Girish Patel states, “Laughing loudly is very good for our health. It improves blood circulation. Clapping is a gesture of appreciation. It is a good exercise.”

Technical things create stress but practical things distress us. Laughing and clapping have a contagious effect. If one does it others will follow.
He states, “Stress is neither necessary nor natural nor normal. Negative emotions reduce capacity of DNA to repair it. That is why there are hereditary diseases. During immense stress it causes brain damage which is irreparable.”
He says, “When you have a problem do not suppress it but communicate. Crying is also one of the best ways to distress ourselves. It has been proved scientifically that if we add five tear drops to a small quantity of water it turns out to be a good antiseptic.
If we live in the present instead of worrying about the past and thinking too much about the future stress will be reduced to a great extent.”
Discard unwanted thoughts to have peace of mind. Practice to see the problem in the same magnitude as it presents to you instead of magnifying it. If you commit mistakes then apologize. If you forgive the guilty then there are likely chances of 95 percent success but only 5 percent failure. If you fail then leave it.
If you forgive unconditionally, then you will feel lighter. You will be devoid of carrying the burden of animosity and acrimony forever.
Anger is like a time bomb. It breaks relationship. Anger is one letter short of danger. Opposite of anger is love, patience and peace. Even 50 percent control of anger is good.
“Inner peace is very important which we can attain by spiritual practice. Antidote of tension is relaxation. Bring change in you by spiritual practice,” believes Dr Patel. Analgesics relieve headache, antacids relieve acidity similarly relaxation relieves stress.
The Andheri-Bandra regional committee’s Chairman Appanna A Shetty and ladies wing president Pramila Shetty also spoke on the occasion. Poornima Shetty compeered the event.

PUNE: Five low intensity blasts rocked Pune on Wednesday evening. According to television reports, a sixth explosive was defused by the security officials.

According to reports, blasts occurred near Gandharwa theatre, near Dena Bank at JM Road, a fast food joint at Deccan Road and Garware College.

Top officials and bomb disposal squads have rushed to blast sites.

Police have confirmed the blasts.

Meanwhile, NIA teams from Delhi and Mumbai have rushed to Pune.

Three people killed and 55 injured as the Vidarbha Express collides with the derailed coaches of a local commuter train near Kasara, about 100km (62 miles) from Mumbai.

Vidarbha Exp crashes into derailed local: 2 dead, 50 hurt

At least two people were killed and 50 injured, two seriously, on Thursday night when Vidarbha Express crashed into four derailed bogies of a Kasara-CST local.

The accident occurred at 9.31 pm between Kasara and Umbermali stations, according to Central Railway officials.

Preliminary reports said the Nagpur-bound Vidarbha Express rammed into the bogies, causing them to overturn. Coaches S 9 and S 10 of the Vidarbha Express were damaged as well.

A Central Railway official said, “Rescue teams from Kalyan, CST and Nashik have rushed to the spot, but operations are hampered by darkness. The Vidarbha Express was travelling at considerable speed, and we fear casualties.”

Five ambulances were rushed to the spot along with surgeons, and a special ward to treat the injured was readied at the Thane Civil Hospital, said the hospital surgeon, Dr Kulkarni.

Shahapur tehsildar Sunil Bhutale, who was at the accident spot, said: “We have recovered two bodies, and more are feared dead. The passengers are in a state of shock, and the injured are being rushed to the Shahapur Civil Hospital.”

After a gap of a fortnight, there would be a five-hour mega block on all the three suburban lines of Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) on Sunday.
On the Western line, there will be a mega block on down slow line between Mumbai Central and Santacruz from 11am to 4pm.

“During the block period, all down slow line trains will be diverted on to down fast line. These trains will not halt at Mahalaxmi, Elphinstone Road and Matunga Road,” said a WR spokesperson.

On CR’s main line, there will be a mega block on down fast line between Matunga and Mulund, while both up and down line between Mankhurd and Nerul will be blocked on the harbour corridor.

Did you know that your could get arrested for consuming liquor chocolates without a drinking permit … 

53-yr-old Preeti Chandrayani and her parents were stunned when Excise officials raided their flat at Worli; one of the rules says you need liquor permit to make/sell alcohol-based chocolates.

Excerpt from Mumbai Mirror, reported by Bapu Deedwania on June 22, 2012: Read Full Article

As booze-related busts go, this one’s particularly shocking. Worli resident Preeti Chandrayani, 53 (pictured above left), makes chocolates at home and some of the chocolates she makes contain alcohol.

detained for pursuing her hobby of making chocolates at home

On Thursday, she was detained by officials of the State Excise Department, who raided her house at Alpa Housing Society on Worli Sea Face and confiscated around 20 bottles of alcohol, several boxes of chocolates and all her recipe books.

According to excise rules framed last year, all chocolate manufacturers require alcohol permits. The officials refused to listen to Chandrayani pleas that making chocolates was her hobby, not a business.

Chandrayani, who will remain in custody overnight, will be produced before a magistrate’s court on Friday where she can apply for bail.

A major fire has broken out on the fourth floor of the Maharashtra Secretariat or Mantralaya building in south Mumbai where files on the Adarsh building scam were reportedly stacked.

Fire breaks out on 4th floor of Maharashtra Secretariat

At least 20 fire engines and three ambulances have been rushed to the spot. No casualties have been reported so far, but according to some reports, several people are feared trapped inside the building.

Approximately 200-300 people were inside the seven-storey building when the fire broke out.

Fire-fighters are trying to prevent it from spreading to other floors in the building. The sixth floor houses Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s office.

The cause of the fire has not yet been ascertained.

Nine of the 11 women, who were rescued for being ‘victims of prostitution’, were released from a reform home on Wednesday, after relatives promised to take them into their custody.

Excerpt from Mumbai Mirror , reported by Bureau on June 21, 2012: Read Full Article

We were treated like prisoners, with no food or proper beds

After spending a fortnight in a reform home in Chembur, two sisters - Anamika Rao and Bindiya Handa - were among nine other women who were allowed to go home on Wednesday evening after the special magistrate at Mazgaon passed a release order.

The Social Service Branch of Mumbai Police had sent these women to the home after rescuing them from an alleged prostitution racket at an eatery in Andheri on June 5.

Some of the women who were released spoke to Mumbai Mirror about their stay at the Women and Children’s Welfare Home. “You can’t call it a welfare home, it was full of suffering,” said one of the women, on the condition of anonymity.

Two suburban local trains collided in Mumbai late on Saturday, but no casualties were reported in the incident.

Two suburban local trains suddenly came opposite each other at Mumbai’s Andheri station on Saturday night and collided, a railway official said.

No major casualties were reported, but the incident threw off gear the suburban railway services, stranding commuters.

“The buffers of two suburban trains, one bound north and another bound south hit each other around 11.15 pm and at least one coach of one of the trains has derailed,” a Western Railway official said shortly after midnight.

Though there are reports of some commuters suffering minor injuries in the incident, the official said it would take time to verify the exact details. The incident involved a Churchgate-Borivli train and a Virar-Churchgate train, just outside suburban Platform 4 at Andheri station.

While the cause of the incident is not yet clear, preliminary reports indicate it could be due to a signal or track failure. Thousands of angry commuters vented their ire at the disruption by resorting to minor stone-pelting in Andheri compelling the Government Railway Police to evict them from the trains and the railway platforms.

Due to the disruption, commuters were either stranded or delayed at the late hour on the entire WR suburban network spanning Virar to Churchgate even as heavy rains hit north Mumbai.

Excerpt from TOI, reported by Ambarish Mishra, TNN on Jun 16, 2012,: Read Full Article

Saamna, the Shiv Sena mouthpiece, has slammed Mumbai’s ‘moral cop’ Vasant Dhoble for the menacing manner in which he is policing the city’s night life.

.... Dhoble keeps visiting eateries and pubs and wields his lathi or hockey stick to humiliate the patrons.

Describing Dhoble as ‘Satan’, Saamna said in a leader comment on Friday, “The assistant police commissioner has brought small entrepreneurs and hoteliers to woe…. Dhoble keeps visiting eateries and pubs and wields his lathi or hockey stick to humiliate the patrons. He even thrashes hotel managers and waiters.” The Shiv Sena morninger demanded Dhoble’s transfer.

Saamna recalled the recent case in which two sisters were picked up by the police during a raid on Masala Curry in Andheri (W). The two women, who were accused by the police of being involved in prostitution, have filed a petition in the Bombay High Court seeking a compensation of Rs 1 crore each.

Men and women here in India’s largest city, a congested, humanity-soaked metropolis of roughly 20 million residents, would seem bound by at least one common misery: far too many people sharing far too few toilets.

the Right to Pee

But there is a difference – unlike men, women often have to pay to urinate. So for months, social advocates like Minu Gandhi have canvassed the city, arguing that this disparity amounts to blatant discrimination and asking women to start demanding a right most of them had never contemplated: the Right to Pee.

“We all feel this is a basic civic right,” Ms. Gandhi said, “a human right.”

India has long had a sanitation problem. Recent census data found that more than half of Indian households lacked a toilet, a rate that has actually worsened in the past decade despite India’s growing wealth, as slums and other substandard housing have proliferated in growing cities. Yet what is unique about the so-called Right to Pee campaign – whose catchy title was coined by the Mumbai media and which now appears to be on the verge of achieving some of its goals – is the argument that the bathroom in India is governed by a double standard.