Privacy

Last updated 20 October 2026. This page is about Shankar Prasad Ashram, run by Shankar Prasad Foundation, a public charitable trust. We decide why your details are collected and how they are used, so under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, we are responsible for them.

What we ask for, and why

When you write to us through this website we keep your name, your email address, your phone number if you give one, the dates you are thinking of, and whatever you tell us in the message. We keep it so that we can reply, and so that the next person who picks up your message can see what you already told us.

When you ask for a stay we also keep your arrival and departure dates, how many of you are coming, and which room you asked about.

The other forms ask for a little more. The booking form also asks for your phone or WhatsApp number and your country, your nationality if you are a foreign national, and, if you choose to tell us, your gender, any food allergies and your yoga or meditation background. Passport and visa details for a foreign guest are taken when you arrive. The course interest form also asks for your age, gender, occupation, an emergency contact, and your diet, health and mental health answers. The newsletter box asks only for your email address.

We use these details only to answer you, to plan your stay or course, to look after you while you are here, and to meet the law. We do not use them for anything else.

Passports, visas and Form C

If you are not an Indian national and you stay overnight, we are required by the Foreigners Regional Registration Office to record your passport number, its expiry date and your visa details, and to report your stay through Form C within twenty-four hours of your arrival. We ask for those details for that reason and no other.

The booking form asks for them only after you tick that you are a foreign national, and only with a second tick that lets us record them. Only the office sees them. Once the Form C is filed, we keep them only for as long as Indian law requires guest records to be kept, and then delete them.

Health and food answers

When you ask to join a course, we ask about your diet, allergies, health and medication, and whether you are being treated for a mental health condition. All of it is optional except a tick confirming what you wrote. We keep it so the teacher can adapt the practices for you, and only with your agreement on the form. Only the office and your teacher see it, it is never sent by email, and you can ask us to delete it at any time. Otherwise we delete it 12 months after your course ends.

Children and young people

This website is for adults. Under Indian law anyone under 18 is a child. If you are writing to us for someone under 18, you must be their parent or legal guardian, and every form asks you to confirm that. When a course form shows an age under 18, it also asks you to confirm that you are that child’s parent or guardian and that you agree to us keeping their details on their behalf. We may phone you to check before we keep a child’s details or hold a place. We do not track children or send them marketing.

Who can see it

Only the ashram’s office and teachers. What you send is stored in the ashram’s own back-office system, which is password-protected and used by Swamiji and the small team here.

We do not sell your details and we do not pass them to anybody for marketing. They leave the ashram only in two situations: where the law requires it, as with Form C above, and to the services listed below, which handle them for us and may not use them for anything else.

The services that handle your details

• Vercel, our web host. It serves this website, and sees your internet address and what you type into our forms while it travels to us.
• Neon, our database. It stores what you send us through the forms, including passport and health answers where you give them.
• Resend, which delivers our email. It carries the notice of each form to the office (health answers are left out), the copy of the course interest form sent back to you, and any newsletter.
• Google (Gmail), where the office reads those notices and writes back to you. If you write to us by WhatsApp, that conversation is handled by WhatsApp (Meta).
• OpenStreetMap, for the map on a few pages. Your browser contacts openstreetmap.org only if you press “Show the map”, and then they see your internet address.
• Instagram (Meta), for posts and reels on a few pages. Your browser contacts instagram.com only if you press Play on one.
• Google Forms, for the registration form linked from the Yoga Nidra Foundation course page. What you type there goes to Google and to the office, and Google handles it under its own terms.
• Payments. This website takes no payments. Fees are paid by bank transfer, UPI, PayPal, Wise or Remitly as a course page shows, or through a Razorpay payment page where the office gives you a link. Online donations may go through Impact Guru. Those services handle your payment details under their own policies. We see only the transaction details your bank or app gives us.

Some of these services may store or process data on servers outside India. Links on this site to other websites (Google Docs, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and others) take you away from us, and their own policies apply there.

How long we keep it

Enquiries and correspondence are kept while there is a reason to keep them, an unanswered question, a stay being planned, a guest who may return. Records tied to money, such as receipts and donation records, are kept for as long as Indian accounting and tax rules require.

• Enquiries and booking requests that did not lead to a stay or a course: 24 months after the last message.
• Health, medication and mental health answers: 12 months after your course ends.
• Passport and visa details: as long as Indian law requires guest records to be kept, then deleted.
• Newsletter email address: until you unsubscribe. Every newsletter has an unsubscribe link.

Cookies and tracking

This website sets no tracking cookies, carries no advertising, and does not use Google Analytics or any similar service. Nothing about your visit is followed from page to page. Two small things are stored:

• A sign-in cookie called ashram_admin, set only when ashram staff sign in to the back office. It is never set for visitors.
• On the course interest form, what you have typed so far is kept in your own browser (session storage) so that a refresh does not lose it. It is cleared when you close the tab or send the form, and it never includes your health, medication or mental health answers.

The map and Instagram cards set nothing until you press them. After that, those services may set their own cookies.

Your rights, and how to delete your data

You can ask to see what we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, or to stop us using it, and you can take back any consent you gave us at any time.

To delete your data: write to swamiyogaratna@gmail.com with the subject “Delete my data”, from the email address you used with us, or call or WhatsApp +91 80953 29129. We will delete it and tell you within 30 days. The only things we may keep are records the law requires us to keep, such as a Form C or accounting records, and we will name them in our reply.

If you are unhappy

Write to the office at swamiyogaratna@gmail.com, marked “Privacy complaint”, or post to Shankar Prasad Ashram, Bankikodla Village, Hannehalli, Taluka Kumta, Karnataka 581319, India. We will reply within 30 days. If it is still not settled, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

Questions, or a correction

Write to swamiyogaratna@gmail.com or call +91 80953 29129. If something we hold about you is wrong, tell us and we will correct it.