Anuradha Rao

As household agency turns into electoral agency, women are redefining what Indian politics must answer to. I grew up watching a pattern in my home. Every birthday or festival, my father would bring my mother a saree or a gift something he believed she would like. And without fail, she would wince. Not because she disliked the gift, but because she had never been asked. Her choice had been assumed for her. For years, she let it pass because life was full of bigger battles. When a woman is...

India’s SME digital revolution will succeed not through code or speed, but through context, language and patience. When I worked as an L&D head, training call-centre teams for UK and US clients, I often found myself explaining why empathy is not a script. You could teach someone to say, “I understand how frustrating that must be, ma’am,” but that wasn’t the same as feeling what it meant for a couple in Manchester to have their washing machine break down on a winter evening. Imagine being 24,...

India’s math crisis will not be solved by rewriting syllabi with Sanskrit gloss, but by rebuilding its classrooms with skilled teachers. I still remember the moment that made me believe I was “bad at mathematics.” I must have been nine or ten. I had raised my hand in class and asked, “If 2 + 2 = 4 and 2 × 2 = 4, why is 3 + 3 = 6 and 3 × 3 = 9?” A simple question, really. One that any good teacher would have seen as a window into a child’s struggle to make sense of abstract concepts. Mine,...