CPR Training Held at RRU with Apollo Foundation Support
RRU Trains More Than 250 Students and NCC Cadets in CPR and Basic Life Support
More than 250 students, NCC cadets and staff members at Rashtriya Raksha University (RRU) took part in a CPR and Basic Life Support (BLS) training programme on Friday, as the university brought practical emergency care training to its campus.
The session was organised by RRU in collaboration with the Billion Hearts Beating (Apollo) Foundation and Vishwa Yuvak Kendra, New Delhi. Participants were taught how to recognise an emergency, respond in the first few minutes and carry out CPR and other basic life-support steps.
For a person suffering a cardiac arrest, those first few minutes can matter greatly. The American Heart
Association’s current guidance says immediate CPR can double or even triple the chance of survival after an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Its 2025 data also shows that only about 42% of adult out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases in the United States received CPR from a bystander.
That gap helps explain why training people outside the medical profession has become an important part of emergency response programmes.
At the RRU session, students, NCC cadets and staff received demonstrations and hands-on instruction in CPR and BLS. The training covered the first response to an emergency and the need to begin CPR quickly while professional medical assistance is being arranged.
The programme was attended by Hiren Vadhia, CSR Executive, and Dr Nidhish Ralolia from Billion Hearts Beating Foundation. From RRU, Professor (Dr) Priyanka Sharma, Dean, EDLD; Bhavanisinh Rathod, CTO, NCC; Kashyap Parmar, Administrative Officer, EDLD; and Uzair Ishaq, Drill Instructor, SNPMMB, coordinated the programme.
RRU is an Institution of National Importance under the Ministry of Home Affairs. It was established by Parliament through the Rashtriya Raksha University Act, 2020, and is based at Lavad in Dehgam, Gandhinagar. The university focuses on education, research and training linked to national security, policing and related fields. Its current website lists more than 2,500 students and 10 schools.
The presence of NCC cadets gives the CPR training an additional practical setting. RRU’s NCC unit includes Army, Girls Battalion and Naval units, and its stated activities include institutional training, camps, social service and community development work.
For students who may take part in camps, public activities or community work, knowing what to do when someone suddenly collapses can be useful. Cardiac arrest is different from a heart attack. During cardiac arrest, the heart suddenly stops pumping blood effectively, and the person may become unresponsive and stop breathing normally. The American Heart Association advises people to call emergency services, begin CPR and use an automated external defibrillator, or AED, when one is available.
The timing of CPR is important. A 2024 study reported by the American Heart Association examined nearly 199,000 witnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the United States between 2013 and 2022. People who received bystander CPR within the first two minutes had better survival and brain-function outcomes than those who received no bystander CPR. The researchers also found that some benefit remained when CPR began later, up to 10 minutes after the arrest. The study was presented at a scientific meeting and was described as preliminary until full publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
The Billion Hearts Beating Foundation, associated with Apollo, has been running CPR and BLS training as part of its community programmes. Apollo’s recent annual report says the foundation trained 20,661 people in CPR and BLS during the reported period. Apollo’s current CSR information also lists Project Prashikshan, which provides BLS training for public-facing groups and first responders.
The training has included groups such as police personnel, NCC cadets and students. An earlier Apollo report on Project Prashikshan describes BLS courses covering recognition of life-threatening emergencies, CPR and basic first aid.
The partnership with Vishwa Yuvak Kendra also fits the organisation’s long-running work with young people. VYK was established in 1961 under the Indian Youth Centres Trust and runs training programmes, workshops and seminars for young people and civil society groups. Its programmes include work conducted at educational institutions.
The CPR session at RRU also forms part of a wider 2026 effort by the Billion Hearts Beating Foundation and Vishwa Yuvak Kendra to take basic emergency-care training to young people in different parts of India. Recent announcements from the organisations describe the Healthy Heart Campaign 2026 as a one-month programme involving BLS and first-aid training in several states, including Gujarat.
For RRU, the session adds a health and emergency-response skill to the university’s wider training environment. The immediate value is simple: when a medical emergency occurs, a trained person nearby may be able to start the first steps of care before an ambulance or medical team arrives.
The programme ended with a message aimed at making CPR knowledge more widely known: “Everyone should know CPR and be able to save a life when needed.”
