Published: Sunday, 6/22/2014 - Updated: 58 seconds ago

BY STEPHEN GRUBER-MILLER BLADE STAFF WRITER

Marilyn A. Hankins, a lifeguard and water aerobics and swim instructor in Ottawa Hills and at the West Toledo YMCA, died Wednesday of ovarian cancer. She was 82.

Mrs. Hankins was born in Newark and did not herself learn how to swim until she and her husband moved to Toledo in 1969 when she was 37.

We would all be out in the water and maybe Mom would get her toes wet, but she was petrified, Mrs. Hankins daughter, Annette Smith, recalled. But once the family moved to Toledo she confronted her fear.

She decided that she didnt want to be left out any more, Mrs. Smith said.

Mrs. Hankins quickly learned to love the water and began a 34-year career teaching swim lessons, water aerobics, and aquanastics exercise classes to people of all ages.

Citing her own example, she told students nobody is too old to learn.

She was always encouraging other adults who didnt know how to swim to do it, Mrs. Smith said.

Mrs. Hankins always made sure to keep her classes lively.

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Y lifeguard, instructor learned to swim at 37

In its biggest fund-raising excercise, Adani Group is set to raise $2.5 billion (Rs 15,000 crore) from investors in India and abroad. Within a quarter, the group will raise $1 billion (Rs 6,000 crore) by selling new shares of Adani Enterprises, the groups flagship firm, and an additional $1.5 billion (Rs 9,000 crore) from banks abroad to fund various projects.

With a pro-business government taking charge at the Centre, Adani Group companies have seen an unprecedented boom in their stocks. Shares of Adani Enterprises have jumped 235 per cent since Narendra Modi was named the Bharatiya Janata Partys prime ministerial candidate in September 2013.

Of its $1.5-billion foreign loan, the group has already raised $500 million (Rs 3,000 crore) to refinance the loans it had taken to acquire a coal and port project in Australian. The group is raising funds for its $15.5-billion coal mining project in Australia, as well as its ports and power projects in India. Adani Group also needs funds for its Rs 5,500-crore takeover of Dhamra port from Larsen & Toubro and Tata Steel.

An email to Adani group did not elicit a response.

Insiders say the fund-raising will help Adani Enterprises and other group companies to expand operations. Analysts say the Modi governments first Budget is expected to provide a major boost to the infrastructure sector, which will help companies in this sector bag new projects. The group delivered a good performance for the quarter ended March. Adani Enterprises reported a fivefold in increase in consolidated profit at Rs 2,848 crore, primarily driven by the companys power business, which recorded additional revenue because of compensatory tariff for two projects. During the March quarter, contribution of the power business rose 200 per cent compared to the year-ago period; sales rose 40 per cent to Rs 16,171 crore.

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Adani in talks to raise $2.5 bn via QIP, foreign loans

Carmelo Anthony will inform the Knicks Monday that he is opting out of his contract and will become a free agent July 1, a league source said.

Monday is the deadline for Anthony to make this move, and it was hardly a secret that it was his plan all along to forego the remaining $23.3 million left on his deal.

The Knicks can pay Anthony more money than another team - five years at roughly $129 million. But the perennial All-Star has said he would be willing to take less if it helps give his team a better chance to contend.

He would have to take far less if he went to another team, and that is a strong possibility since the Knicks are in no position right now to compete for a title.

The Bulls appear to be the Knicks' stiffest competition for Anthony. But the Rockets and Heat also could put themselves in position to make a run at Anthony. And like Chicago they could be playing for a title immediately with the addition of Anthony.

The most another team can pay Anthony is four years at about $95 million. The Heat could only give him about $55 million, if everything breaks right for Miami.

Chicago, Houston and Miami all have to make moves to clear money to sign Anthony. The Bulls are attractive to Anthony because they have Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, a top coach in Tom Thibodeau and play in a major market.

Anthony is said to be torn on leaving the Knicks. He loves New York and forced a trade here in 2011. But he has said winning will be more important than money this off-season. Anthony is 30, has only been out of the first round of the playoff twice and missed the postseason this past season for the first time in his career.

Knicks president Phil Jackson had hoped Anthony would "opt in," see if he liked playing for new coach Derek Fisher and in the Triangle offense before becoming a free agent in 2015. That also would give the Knicks additional flexibility in 2015 when they're set to be well under the salary cap.

As of now, the Knicks plan to build through free agency the next two summers. Anthony may not be willing to wait at least a year to potentially play for a contender. If Anthony leaves altogether, the Knicks will be able to sign two marquee players next summer.

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Carmelo Anthony must tell Knicks tomorrow if he'll become free agent

This has been the yoga week, and stressed-out Mumbai honours the 5,000-year-old tradition by turning it into a part of its lifestyle.

"When one of the oldest yoga centres in the world The Yoga Institute started in 1918, there was a sense among yogis that their quest for spiritual bliss had no place in the business world," remembers Hansaben Yogendra the current director whose father-in-law Jayadev Yogendra started the institute.

She was speaking to DNA soon after a special session on World Yoga Day (June 21) with 100 senior police officers from 11.00 am to 1.00 pm. "This class was part of the global plan of similar classes in local time in each time zone, leading to a worldwide 24-hr yoga marathon."

Back in 1918, the teachers or yogis were far and few and they taught from their homes largely. "You weren't a real yogi if you were trying to make money off it," remarks Yogendra. "But now it's become a business. Mumbai has over 200 schools."

Today the world over several schools and styles have led to a mushrooming of Iyengar, Bikram, Anusara, Ashtanga, Laughter Yoga and Kathak Yoga classes. There are classes and schools geared toward the strictest aspirants of mind-body bliss, for the neophytes experimenting with ashtanga and kundalini styles, and for fitness junkies simply after a sublime "yoga butt". Hybrids, such as Spynga (yoga/cycling), Yogalates (yoga/pilates) and Yoganetics (yoga/kinetics), and other variations (naked yoga, anyone?) are now widely offered.

But while the industry has taken on a something-for-everyone mindset, some like yoga teacher for nearly two decades, Nilufer Patel says yoga's rapid expansion has diluted its foundational core: to achieve serenity in our bodies and minds, shut off from the burdens of daily life.

The 55-year-old who is known to be strict with her regimen and has had several celebrity clients says she refuses admission to more than she admits. "Yoga is not for people who come saying they want to fit into a particular dress or lose weight," she points out. "The weight loss will happen as a by-product but you can't come looking for that as a goal." While appreciating how fitness conscious people are becoming, she underlines, "Yoga is not excercise. It has ahimsa, satya all tied into it."

Echoing her, Tama Soble, co-owner of Esther Myers Yoga Studio, which opened in Toronto in 1979, says: "Hybrids like yoga-pilates might be interesting as a physical discipline, but if not focused on the concept of body and mind integration, I don't think its yoga."

What was once the mysterious practice of new age spiritualists and countercultural hipsters, yoga has moved out of the ashram and into the mainstream. Superstar gurus and high-profile celebrity practitioners have helped transform the 5,000-year-old Indian philosophy into a multi-million-dollar, transnational industry, which the Yoga Journal magazine says is worth $42 billion worldwide.This not only includes fees, but also includes yoga-gear like mats and outfits. For example, Lululemon, a Vancouver-based yoga-apparel brand, earns more than $1 billion worldwide annually.

Though some lament the fact that yoga has become more a sport than practice, others say yoga in any form still benefits the practitioner, and helps open one to its original aims: heightened awareness, focus, oneness with the outside world.

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Spynga, yogalates, yoga butt: whats your choice?