The Indian parent is obsessed with making their kids doctors and engineers, betting everything on a “safe” career. But Chandrapur MBBS aspirant Anurag Borkar’s recent suicide raises the question: Just how safe can a profession be if your child feels trapped in it?

Ahead of World Mental Health Day 2025, here’s a closer look at why India’s teens are feeling more anxious, uncertain, and unheard than ever before

Student suicides in India have reached alarming levels, with over 13,800 cases reported in 2023, the highest in a decade, as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2023 report. Experts and educators stress that academic pressure, emotional stress, and lack of accessible counselling are key factors, highlighting the urgent need for supportive interventions in schools and homes.

While Tele-MANAS provides support, academic pressure, career uncertainty, and mental health challenges cannot be solved by one counsellor alone, writes Ganesh Kohli

Have you ever noticed how when schools, communities, NGOs, and government institutions team up, public school counseling begins to shift from aspiration into action? For the IC3 Movement, highlighting these collaborations shows how education policy, public school counseling, and government and education reform can work together with inspiring results.

The 2025 Annual IC3 Conference and Expo in Mumbai was far more than a gathering of educators. It was a vivid demonstration of what a global, volunteer-driven community can achieve when united by a singular purpose: to make career and college counseling an integral part of every student’s education.

It is a beautiful thing when educators, institutions, and communities pause to ask: Are we doing enough to guide our students toward purposeful lives? That question is at the heart of the IC3 Movement. And this year, through the 2025 IC3 Regional Forums, it was answered with resounding clarity in classrooms and campuses across 14 countries. With immense gratitude, we reflect on this incredible journey that brought together over 2,600 participants across 32 cities across the world. More than 642,000 students were directly impacted through forums held at host schools that generously opened their doors, minds, and hearts to the mission of IC3: counseling in every school, purpose to every child.

After six years, the IC3 Movement is coming home, and there is no place better for it than Mumbai. On 20 & 21 August 2025, the global education and counseling community will gather at the Jio World Convention Centre (JWCC) for the 2025 Annual IC3 Conference & Expo, in a city that perfectly reflects our vision: dynamic, diverse, and forward-looking.