• Guinea-Bissau: Programme offers food to children in education drive
• Plans made in Jordan to remove 3,000 children from labour market this year
• South Africa: Nedbank launches R15m bursary scheme

• Maharishi's programmes blossoming in Holland
• The David Lynch Foundation donates (US)$1 million to boost enrollment at Maharishi University of Management
• Maharishi Invincibility School under construction in Uganda

• Chile: Rocks, tear gas in annual youth protests
• AP Poll: Students in US colleges overwhelmed by stress
• US: Drinking prevention needed in grade school - study

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Positive Trends
10 Short Summaries of Top Stories

Guinea-Bissau: Programme offers food to children in education drive
27 March 2008 - Aid programmes are attracting poor children to school by offering food, in the hope that proper nutrition and education will help them thrive. Some countries are learning to cultivate school gardens and use locally produced foods in their national school feeding programmes. (more)

Plans made in Jordan to remove 3,000 children from labour market this year
18 March 2008 - Inspectors at Jordan's Labour Ministry have set a 2008 target to remove from the labour market about 3,000 children. The plan is part of a long-term strategy to remove some 38,000 children from the labour market. Children under 16 are encouraged by the ministry to return to school or obtain job training. (more)

South Africa: Nedbank launches R15m bursary scheme
10 March 2008 - Financial services group Nedbank has launched a R15 million bursary programme aimed at addressing skills shortages in the banking and finance sector. The Nedbank Bursary Programme will provide financial assistance to students undertaking undergraduate degrees in the fields of Business Science and Commerce with a particular emphasis on subjects like Accounting Sciences, Statistics, Economics, Finance and Financial management, Actuarial Science, Information Systems or Informatics, and Computer Science. (more)

South Africa: Old Mutual rises to the Lapdesk Challenge
7 March 2008 - Old Mutual has risen to the 'Lapdesk Challenge' and pledged R3 million for the purchase of 60,000 lapdesks to be distributed in 74 schools throughout South Africa. The Lapdesk is an innovative alternative to the traditional classroom desk as its ergonomic design allows a child to hold it against his body or sit with it on his lap. The board provides an effective writing surface whether sitting under a tree in a rural school, in a classroom without desks, or at home. (more)

India: UNESCO helps fund Veda research
6 March 2008 - The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is providing funds to 15 institutions working on projects that aim to preserve the Vedas. (more)

Egypt: Drive to boost girls' education
5 March 2008 - Thanks to a government and UN-sponsored drive to build over 1,000 'girl-friendly' schools in seven Egyptian provinces, thousands of girls now have the opportunity for an education. About 1,063 schools have so far been built and 27,784 students enrolled. The 'girl-friendly' schools also accept boys but their number should not exceed 25 per cent of classroom capacity. (more)

United States: Georgia school system goes to single-gender classrooms
25 February 2008 - The district of Greene County, in Georgia, is set to become the first public school district in the nation to go entirely with boys and girls in separate classrooms. (more)

United States: New Indian research chair at UCLA to study consciousness
23 February 2008 - The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) is establishing the Dr Mani Bhaumik Chair of Consciousness Study, in order to study the mind-universe relationship. Dr Bhaumik acknowledges that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) programme, 'showed to the West how our consciousness affects the body'. (more)

United States: Stanford University waives tuition if income under $100,000
20 February 2008 - Amid calls by some US lawmakers for wealthy universities to lower tuition costs, officials at Stanford University said on Wednesday they would no longer charge tuition to students from families earning less than $100,000 a year. Harvard University, Yale University, and Stanford have the three largest endowments among U.S. universities. (more)

Canada: A school works to revive native language
14 February 2008 - The linguistic knowledge of native speakers is helping to preserve the language of the Cayugas, one of the six nations that make up the Iroquois Confederacy of southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States, and young people are becoming a viable population of fluent speakers. (more)

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Success of Maharishi's Programmes
10 Short Summaries of Top Stories

Maharishi's programmes blossoming in Holland
31 March 2008 - Maharishi's programmes are blossoming in Holland, a nation that has achieved the necessary number of Yogic Flyers to create national invincibility. Raja Willem Meijles, Administrator of Invincible Holland for the Global Country of World Peace, presented inspiring news about Consciousness-Based Education, Maharishi Ayur-Veda, and continuing media coverage during a talk on the Maharishi Global Family Chat. (more)

The David Lynch Foundation donates (US)$1 million to boost enrollment at Maharishi University of Management
30 March 2008 - The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace has announced a plan to boost enrollment by providing (US)$1 million in scholarships to cover the cost of learning the Transcendental Meditation Technique for those who have applied to be a student at Maharishi University of Management in Iowa, USA and who come to campus to learn the technique. (more)

Maharishi Invincibility School under construction in Uganda
28 March 2008 - Raja Graham de Freitas, [Administrator] of the Global Country of World Peace for Uganda, gave an inspiring report on Maharishi's Global Family Chat about the rise of invincibility in Uganda. Raja de Freitas explained that Uganda, located in eastern Africa, has a population of 30 million and its required number of citizens practicing Yogic Ylying to achieve national invincibility is 550. (more)

Philippines promotes ideal education and Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture
28 March 2008 - Raja Bob LoPinto, Raja (Administrator) of the Philippines for the Global Country of World Peace, speaks about a new Maharishi School and land for a Maharishi Vedic Organic Agriculture project in that nation. (more)

A Maharishi School in Serbia
27 March 2008 - In a recent Global Family Chat, which is broadcast daily via satellite and the Internet on Channel 3 of the Maharishi Channel, Raja Felix Kaegi announced the plans for a Maharishi School in Serbia. (more)

Invincibility for the Netherlands through Consciousness-Based Education and Maharishi Vedic Health
25 March 2008 - Dr Paul Gelderloos, National Director for the Global Country of World Peace in the Netherlands, recently spoke on Maharishi's Global Family Chat about the latest development and progress in two schools in the Netherlands, and the growing receptivity to Maharishi Ayur-Veda. (more)

David Lynch to fund Transcendental Meditation scholarships: News spreads around the world
24 March 2008 - The article 'Filmmaker David Lynch to give $1 million to Maharishi U' first appeared in the Des Moines Register on 13 March 2008. It was picked up by both the Associated Press and United Press International, and seen throughout the US and around the world. (more)

Part II - A glossary of terms for Consciousness-Based Education
23 March 2008 - Just as each discipline of modern science has its own terminology, a language in which it is best expressed, Consciousness-Based Education has a terminology in which it is best expressed. Following are definitions that are helpful for understanding the value of Consciousness-Based Education, which is being offered to more and more students as interest rises in countries around the world. (more)

Part I - A glossary of terms for Consciousness-Based Education
22 March 2008 - Just as each discipline of modern science has its own terminology, a language in which it is best expressed, Consciousness-Based Education has a terminology in which it is best expressed. Following are definitions that are helpful for understanding the value of Consciousness-Based Education, which is being offered to more and more students as interest rises in countries around the world. (more)

Film maker David Lynch launches peace plan - Part II
21 March 2008 - Dr David Lynch's Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace will provide $1 million in scholarships for students to learn Transcendental Meditation and to attend Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, USA. Dr Lynch gave a webcast press conference on 19 March 2008, to answer questions about this announcement. (more)

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Flops
10 Short Summaries of Top Stories

Chile: Rocks, tear gas in annual youth protests
29 March 2008 - Masked youths threw stones at police who responded by firing tear gas and water cannon in the Chilean capital on Friday at the start of annual protests against the government and the country's free-market system. Dozens of youths, some in school uniforms, threw objects into the Santiago's main street, the Alameda. The protests were aimed at Chile's capitalist-style economic model and the government, which the groups say manipulates the education system to favour the wealthy and exclude the poor. (more)

AP Poll: Students in US colleges overwhelmed by stress
22 March 2008 - US college students are so frazzled they can't sleep, eat, or study. They're even anxious about spring break. Most are just overwhelmed by stress, from everyday worries about grades and relationships, to darker thoughts of suicide, according to a poll of undergraduates from coast to coast. Four in 10 students say they endure stress often. Nearly one in five say they feel it all or most of the time. One in five say they have felt too stressed to do schoolwork or be with friends. Majorities cite classic stress symptoms including trouble concentrating, sleeping, and finding motivation. Most say they have also been agitated, worried, too tired to work. Many cite eating problems and say they have felt lonely, depressed, like they are failures. (more)

US: Drinking prevention needed in grade school - study
11 March 2008 - A significant number of US children are already drinking by middle school, suggesting that prevention needs to start in the elementary grades, researchers conclude in a new report. About 17 per cent of sixth-graders at 61 Chicago schools said they had drunk alcohol in the past year. These children were more likely than their peers to have a range of risk factors for early drinking -- such as delinquent or violent behaviour, a lack of adult supervision out of school, and having friends who drank alcohol. (more)

Tibetan language seen hurt by China's neglect
25 February 2008 - The Chinese government is neglecting and actively undermining the Tibetan language as part of continuing efforts to dilute the region's unique culture, a human rights group said. (more)

Iraq: Syriac language struggling to survive
31 December 2007 - Syriac is an Eastern Aramaic language that was once a major literary language spoken throughout the Middle East. The influence of Syriac language is declining in Iraqi society. According to the Syriac culture and arts department in Iraq's Kurdistan, over half of the Syriac community cannot read or write in their native tongue. (more)

UK: Indiscipline said forcing teachers out
28 December 2007 - Bad behaviour in classrooms and too much government red tape is prompting a growing number of school teachers to quit, the Conservatives said. They said over a quarter of a million qualified teachers under 60 are not teaching. Nearly 100,000 left the profession between 2000 and 2005, more than double the number that left in the preceding five years, according to Tory figures. (more)

World off track on goal of school for all children
12 December 2007 - Close to one billion people will never receive a formal education because governments around the world are not living up to pledges to provide free primary schooling for all by 2015, aid groups said on Wednesday. The campaign group said in a report that 72 million children were still not attending primary school and that 774 million adults -- or one in five -- were illiterate. Although many of them were in Africa, the study said several African governments had made marked improvements in providing schooling. (more)

China: School children forced to work to generate extra income for schools
3 December 2007 - Children in China are often forced to work long hours doing dangerous or exhausting work at the expense of their education under the 'work and study' scheme to help schools supplement meager budgets, Human Rights Watch said. (more)

US: Fourth-graders losing ground on literacy
28 November 2007 - US fourth-graders have lost ground in reading ability compared with kids around the world, according to results of a global reading test. Test results released Wednesday showed US students, who took the test last year, scored about the same as they did in 2001, the last time the test was given -- despite an increased emphasis on reading under the No Child Left Behind law. (more)

US: Student group wants more guns on campus
21 November 2007 - Thousands of US students want to carry concealed weapons on campus saying the best way to prevent campus bloodshed is more guns. The nonpartisan group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, argue that students and faculty already licensed to carry concealed weapons should be allowed to carry guns along with their textbooks. Every state but Illinois and Wisconsin allows residents some form of concealed handgun carrying rights, with 36 states issuing permits to most everyone who meets licensing criteria. The precise standards vary from state to state, but most require an applicant to be at least 21 and to complete formal instruction on use of force. (more)