top of page

By:

Shoumojit Banerjee

27 August 2024 at 9:57:52 am

Classroom of Courage

In drought-scarred Maharashtra, a couple’s experiment in democratic schooling is turning child beggars into model citizens In the parched stretches of Maharashtra, from Solapur to the drought-hit villages of Marathwada, a modest social experiment has quietly unfolded for nearly two decades. It is neither a grand government scheme nor a corporate-backed charity. Since 2007, the Ajit Foundation, founded by Mahesh and Vinaya Nimbalkar, has worked with children living at the sharpest edges of...

Classroom of Courage

In drought-scarred Maharashtra, a couple’s experiment in democratic schooling is turning child beggars into model citizens In the parched stretches of Maharashtra, from Solapur to the drought-hit villages of Marathwada, a modest social experiment has quietly unfolded for nearly two decades. It is neither a grand government scheme nor a corporate-backed charity. Since 2007, the Ajit Foundation, founded by Mahesh and Vinaya Nimbalkar, has worked with children living at the sharpest edges of society in Maharashtra. The foundation has become a home for out-of-school children, those who have never enrolled, the children of migrant labourers and single parents, and those who scavenge at garbage dumps or drift between odd jobs. To call their foundation an “NGO” is to miss the point. Vinaya Nimbalkar describes it as a “democratic laboratory”, where education is not merely instruction but an initiation into citizenship. The couple were once government schoolteachers with the Solapur Zilla Parishad, leading stable lives. Yet what they witnessed unsettled them: children who had never held a pencil, begging at traffic signals or sorting refuse for a living. Prompted by this reality, the Nimbalkars resigned their jobs to work full-time for the education of such children. Leap of Faith They began modestly, teaching children in migrant settlements in Solapur and using their own salaries to pay small honorariums to activists. Funds soon ran dry, and volunteers drifted away. Forced out of their home because of their commitment to the cause, they started a one-room school where Vinaya, Mahesh, their infant son Srijan and forty children aged six to fourteen lived together as an unlikely family. The experiment later moved to Barshi in the Solapur district with support from Anandvan. Rural hardship, financial uncertainty and the pandemic repeatedly tested their resolve. At one stage, they assumed educational guardianship of nearly 200 children from families that survived by collecting scrap on the village outskirts. Eventually, the foundation relocated to Talegaon Dabhade near Pune, where it now runs a residential hostel. Twenty-five children currently live and study there. The numbers may seem modest, but the ambition is not. Democracy in Practice What distinguishes the Ajit Foundation is not only who it serves but also how it operates. Within its walls, democracy is practised through a Children’s Gram Panchayat and a miniature Municipal Council elected by the children themselves. Young candidates canvass, hold meetings and present their budgets. Children maintain accounts and share decisions about chores, activities and certain disciplinary matters. In a country where democratic culture is often reduced to voting, the foundation’s approach is quietly radical. It treats children from marginalised backgrounds as citizens in formation. The right to choose — whether to focus on sport, cooking, mathematics or cultural activities — is respected. “We try never to take away what is their own,” says Vinaya Nimbalkar. Rather than forcing every child into a uniform academic mould, individual abilities are encouraged. A boy skilled in daily calculations may not be pushed into hours of bookish study; a girl who excels in cooking may lead the kitchen team. For children who have known only precarity, standing for election, managing a budget or speaking at a meeting can be transformative. On International Women’s Day, the foundation seeks visibility not just for praise but for partnership. If you are inspired by their mission, consider supporting or collaborating—your involvement can help extend opportunities to more children in need.

India’s AI Leap and the Politics of Disruption

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 halls, the country seemed seized by a very different energy in form of topless protests by members of an irresponsible Opposition, communal skirmishes, terror alerts and social-media frenzy. While India was announcing its arrival in the AI big league, it seemed simultaneously to advertise its vulnerability to disorder. Whether this was coincidence or something more deliberate has quickly become a matter of political argument. But even without indulging conspiracies, the contrast reveals something important about India’s moment. As it inches closer to the technological frontier, the costs of instability - real or manufactured - are rising.


Watershed Moment

The summit itself was carefully choreographed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, inaugurating the main sessions on February 19, framed artificial intelligence not as a Silicon Valley toy but as a development tool. India, he argued, could fuse scale, data and democratic legitimacy in a way neither China nor the West quite manages.


More than 840 exhibitors, over 500 parallel events, delegates from 88 countries and a parade of corporate announcements that, taken together, resembled an investment avalanche. Reliance Industries promised Rs. 10 lakh crore (about $110bn) for AI infrastructure, data centres and networks. Adani Group pledged $100bn by 2035 for data centres and AI-ready infrastructure. Google unveiled plans for a $15 billion full-stack AI hub, while Microsoft spoke of investments of up to $50 billion across AI, cloud and skilling, with India as a launchpad for the global south.


There were partnerships too. OpenAI tied up with the Tata Group on AI compute infrastructure starting at 100 megawatts and scaling to a gigawatt. Anthropic and Infosys announced centres of excellence. Blackstone revealed a $600m bet on Neysa, an Indian AI start-up. Domestic players showcased indigenous models such as Sarvam AI, signalling that India wants not merely to host foreign platforms but to build its own.


Yet, for all the chest-thumping, India remains a challenger rather than a leader. It ranks around tenth among AI nations, well behind America and China. In global AI investment it is third, trailing the United States (with roughly 56 percent of global investment) and China (17 percent), but ahead of most of Europe. The harder constraint lies in high-performance computing. America accounts for about 35 percent of the world’s top systems and nearly half of total computing capacity; China has fewer systems but remains formidable. India’s share is just around one percent, but rising.


India’s recent accession to the US-led Pact for Integrity and Transparency in Semiconductors (dubbed the ‘Pax Silica’ alliance) was announced at the summit, in the presence of Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and America’s ambassador. The pact aims to secure supply chains for chips, AI and critical minerals across the Indo-Pacific. With India on board, the group now numbers ten countries. Beijing, already wary of India’s data scale and talent pool, is unlikely to be comforted.


Countries that threaten to rearrange technological hierarchies tend to acquire not just admirers but spoilers.


Disconcerting Protest

The most visually arresting disruption came on the summit’s opening day. Eight to ten workers of the Indian Youth Congress, having apparently gained entry through QR-code registration, shed their shirts inside the venue and shouted slogans against Mr Modi. They claimed to be protesting farm policies and an India–US trade deal; the Youth Congress president described the stunt as ‘Gandhian’ and ‘Bhagat Singh-style.’


The ruling BJP accused the opposition of shaming India before the world. What made the episode more damaging was not its nudity but its choreography. Pre-registration and coordinated action inside a tightly secured venue suggested planning rather than impulse. Even sceptics conceded that it landed as an image problem at precisely the wrong moment.


The same week saw communal flare-ups in three places: Sihora in Madhya Pradesh, Amberpet in Hyderabad and Bagalkot in Karnataka. In Sihora, alleged vandalism at a Durga temple during simultaneous aarti and nearby namaz triggered stone-pelting.


In Hyderabad, a Shivaji Jayanti procession intersected awkwardly with Ramadan prayers; tensions escalated, and a YouTuber was attacked. In Bagalkot, stones were thrown at another Shivaji procession. While the police swiftly restored order, the timing was unsettling as all three incidents clustered around February 19, precisely during the summit’s centrepiece.


India has no shortage of religious processions or flashpoints. Yet investors and diplomats notice patterns, not explanations.


More unsettling were intelligence alerts warning of possible terror attacks on Delhi temples during the summit. For many, this revived memories of February 2020, when riots had erupted in north-east Delhi during the visit of American president Donald Trump (serving his first term), that left over 50 dead. Several accused like Tahir Hussain, Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam were later arrested under anti-terror laws; cases remain before the courts. At the time, allegations of foreign links had surfaced, though proof remains elusive.


The recurrence of alerts at moments of diplomatic or symbolic importance has encouraged darker readings.


Foreign Shadows

Fuel has been added by the rhetoric of external actors and the statements of domestic opposition figures. The Hungarian-American financier George Soros, long cast as a villain in nationalist narratives, has spoken openly of funding efforts to defend democracy worldwide, including in India - remarks his critics interpret as hostility to the Modi government. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, during recent foreign visits, has praised China’s manufacturing prowess and warned that India’s neglect of production risks unemployment and social fracture.


Set against India’s push to present itself as a stable, trustworthy AI partner for the global south, such comments grate.


There is a precedent here. During the pandemic, India’s production of Covaxin and Covishield, and its willingness to supply vaccines to over 100 countries, won praise but also resentment from established pharmaceutical powers and competitors. A similar dynamic may be emerging in AI. The summit’s emphasis on open, inclusive models; on training programmes across 500 universities; and on building hundreds of indigenous models positions India as a potential norm-setter for the global south. That threatens existing centres of data power.


None of this requires a grand conspiracy. Progress itself creates losers. Political opposition seeks visibility. Foreign rivals probe for weakness. Fringe groups exploit moments of attention.


The danger for India lies less in sabotage than in self-distraction. If every disruption is framed as an existential plot, the country risks confusing noise for signal. Its AI ambitions will be tested not by protestors but by electricity grids, chip supply, research depth and regulatory clarity. Closing the high-performance computing gap with China will take years of disciplined investment, not weeks of outrage.


Yet complacency would be equally foolish. As $250bn of promised capital waits to be deployed, and as India edges closer to strategic technologies, the premium on internal stability will rise. Investors are patient about politics, but not about unpredictability.


Whether the disturbances were coincidence or calculation may never be proved. What is clear is that success now carries a new responsibility.


To lead in artificial intelligence, India must master not only algorithms and data centres, but also the harder task of governing attention, dissent and disorder. For in the age of AI, power lies as much in perception as in code.

Comments

bottom of page