AI generated image A recent article that I had authored titled ‘Why Teachers Matter More in the Age of AI’ drew thoughtful and encouraging responses from readers across diverse backgrounds. Many agreed that despite rapid advances in artificial intelligence, the role of the teacher remains not only relevant but essential. The response made clear that the question is no longer whether AI will change education, but how we must respond to that change. This naturally leads to a de

India’s rapid shift toward a digitally mediated financial system has delivered gains in efficiency, inclusion, and transaction speed. At the centre of this transformation is the Unified Payments Interface, now processing billions of transactions each month and functioning as the backbone of retail payments. This architecture improves access and reduces friction, but it also concentrates operational dependence within a tightly connected system where vulnerabilities can scale q

We live in a time where almost everything is just a tap away. Smartphones guide our travel, artificial intelligence answers our questions, and digital tools make daily life faster and easier than ever before. Convenience has become the defining feature of modern life. From ordering food to attending meetings, technology has transformed the way we live, work, and communicate. However, beneath this remarkable progress lies a quiet and often unnoticed loss-the gradual disappeara

As IT hiring collapses, India’s universities stand exposed as assembly lines for jobs that no longer exist. Consider three names. Google. Facebook. Dell. Each of them was built inside a college dormitory. Google was a doctoral project at Stanford in 1996; its parent company is today worth over three trillion dollars. Facebook was a side experiment in a Harvard dorm in 2004; it now reaches half the planet. Dell began in a University of Texas dormitory in 1984, assembled by a n

A growing concern is being felt in classrooms and faculty rooms. If students can access lectures from the best universities, solve problems using artificial intelligence, and get explanations within seconds, what is left for the teacher to do? Has the role of the teacher reached its limit? The concern is understandable, but it rests on a weak assumption. Information has become abundant. Understanding has not, and thinking, certainly not. For a long time, teachers were the mai

India’s AI curriculum broadens access, but risks widening the employability gap. India’s Economic Survey 2024-25 flagged the tension directly. Chief Economic Advisor V. Anantha Nageswaran noted that while technology eventually creates more jobs than it displaces, the critical period lies in between. That interval requires supporting institutions, changed academic curricula, and changed workplace practices. India’s AI education policy, rolled out through CBSE from 2026-27, is

The danger is not technology itself, but the quiet, unquestioned surrender to its conveniences. A few months ago, ChatGPT unveiled a new health feature that allows users to upload medical test reports for analysis, carefully stopping just short of formal clinical advice. On paper, it was a modest extension of an already ubiquitous tool. In practice, it signalled something larger: the quiet expansion of machines into domains once considered deeply human. Around the same time,

Understanding how different professions may respond to AI can help students, parents, educators, and policymakers make wiser choices for the future. AI generated image A quiet anxiety is spreading across classrooms, workplaces, and households across the world. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly capable in writing reports, analysing data, generating images, and even producing computer code, many people are beginning to ask a simple but unsettling question: Which j

Pune-based engineer’s innovation brings relief in the time of LPG shortage Mumbai: As urban households continually grapple with fluctuating LPG prices and supply constraints, a Pune-based engineer has developed a sustainable, home-grown solution. Priyadarshan Sahasrabuddhe, an IIT-Bombay alumnus, has invented 'Vaayu'—a compact, domestic biogas reactor that seamlessly converts everyday kitchen waste into clean cooking fuel. By bringing renewable energy generation directly in

From missed opportunities in the 1960s to today’s fab ambitions, India’s semiconductor quest hinges on aligning world-class chip design with homegrown manufacturing. In the context of the ‘Make in India’ initiative, our ambition of becoming an independent semiconductor‑manufacturing hub has become a national discourse. Having spent the last decade and a half in hands‑on micro-manufacturing, both in academic and industrial R&D with a few patents in the field, I know how crucia

AI generated image It appears to be a quiet reversal of everything we were trained to admire. In school and in professional life, we celebrated the student who produced the right answer, the executive who delivered solutions, the leader who spoke with authority… Questions were treated as stepping stones, corridors leading to the grand hall of conclusion. The answer was the destination. Yet in the age of Artificial Intelligence, particularly in this era of the ‘prompt,’ the hi

Artificial Intelligence is not merely a technology upgrade cycle but a once-in-a-generation test of managerial courage and operational discipline. In 1876, when Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone, a senior executive at Western Union reportedly dismissed it as an “idiotic toy” with no commercial possibilities. The company famously declined to buy the patent. A few decades later, that ‘toy’ had rewired global commerce. Similarly, in the early 1900s, automobiles we

I recently read James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas’ purely out of curiosity. The book was written primarily for people in sales, advertising, and marketing. At first glance, it did not seem relevant to science or technology. Yet, as I read on, it became increasingly clear that Young’s approach is not limited to any one profession. The method he outlines applies equally well to scientific research, technological innovation, and even everyday problem-solving. T

As India unveiled its ambition to become an artificial-intelligence superpower, an unsettling sequence of protests and riots marred the summit. The India AI Impact Summit 2026 last week brought together global technology chiefs, investors, policymakers and heads of state from some 20 countries. At New Delhi’s Bharat Mandapam, gleaming halls hosted what the government billed as the largest artificial-intelligence gathering the world has yet seen. But disturbingly, outside the

While the India AI Impact Summit signalled ambition, building credible AI capacity will be harder. For decades, India’s economic rise was measured in visible achievements in the form of highways laid, ports expanded and software exported to the world. But last week at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, the metric of national power shifted during the India AI Impact Summit 2026 - the first such global AI summit led by a nation of the Global South. Which saw delegations from over 10

A borrowed machine exposed the gulf between technological ambition and institutional care during the AI Impact Summit. India wants to be taken seriously as an artificial-intelligence power. That was the message delivered with customary confidence by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the inauguration of the AI Impact Summit, a gathering impressive on paper: 20 heads of state, 60 ministers and hundreds of global AI executives. The ambition was to announce India’s arrival as a lea

Artificial intelligence is fast snapping our work-based social contract and populous countries like India will feel the strain first. For more than two centuries, modern societies have rested on a deceptively simple bargain. In exchange for labour, citizens received wages, dignity and a stake in the future. Work was not merely a means of survival but the organising principle of economic life, social status and political legitimacy. Governments taxed it and democracies were bu

Indian patent for portable sound absorption testing device Kolhapur: Researchers from Shivaji University, Kolhapur, have developed a portable sound absorption testing device that can scientifically assess whether an installed sound system and its acoustic treatment are functioning effectively. The innovation has been granted an Indian patent, marking a first-of-its-kind development in this field, the university said on Thursday. The patented device, named the Portable Sound A

When my generation first watched Modern Times , we laughed easily. The scenes were funny, and the central character unforgettable. That character was the Tramp, a small man in an oversized coat, tight trousers, worn shoes, a bowler hat, and a thin walking stick. For many readers today, the Tramp may need a brief introduction. Charlie Chaplin created him to represent an ordinary person, poor, vulnerable, often confused, but never without dignity or hope. Yet beneath the laugh

The real ethical crisis is not AI in art but who owns cultural intelligence. The current debate on artificial intelligence and art is filled with anxiety. Artists worry about machines replacing human creativity. Scholars fear the loss of authenticity. Audiences wonder whether tradition will survive automation. These concerns are understandable, especially in societies where art is closely tied to identity and livelihood. However, these debates often miss the real ethical prob