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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.

Newspaper delivery-boy to Maharashtra DGP

Mumbai: Acclaimed IPS officer Sadanand V. Date, decorated with the President’s Medals and one of the heroes of the deadly 26/11 Mumbai terror strikes (2008), will take over as Maharashtra’s new Director General of Police on Saturday for a period of two years.


Presently, Date is the Director-General, National Investigation Agency (NIA) and earlier he headed the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), besides serving as DIG, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other critical policing positions at the state and centre in the past 35 years.


Most recently, he oversaw the investigations into the massacre of tourists in the Pahalgam (April 22, 2025) and other major cases.


Born in a humble family in Pune, Date, 58, had a life full of struggles, having lost his father when he was 15, and his mother worked as a cook to earn a living for the family.


Hungering for education, the bright Date chipped in by working as a newspaper delivery boy from 1977 for nearly 10 years, to part-finance his studies in school and college.


Over the years, he completed his B. Com. and M.Com., became a Cost Accountant (ICAI), and even earned a PhD in Commerce from the Savitribai Phule Pune University. However, lured by public service he also appeared for his UPSC exams, and cracked it to become an IPS officer in 1999.


During his tenure with the CBI, he was sent on a Humphrey Fellowship (2005-2006) to the University of Minnesota where he studied the scourge of ‘while-collar and organised crimes in the USA’, plus the theoretical and practical aspects of dealing with it.


Armed with the expertise, on his return to India, he was made the Additional Commissioner of Police (Economic Offences Wing), then headed the elite ‘Force One’ in Maharashtra, designed on the lines of the National Security Guards (NSG), and was the first Commissioner of Police of the newly-created Mira Bhayander-Vasai Virar Commissionerate (MBVV).


Heroic Act

When Mumbai witnessed the dastardly 60-hour long terror strikes from the night of Nov. 26-29, 2008, a plucky Date - armed with the Mumbai Police’s modest weapons and courageous cops - literally chased the 10 Pakistan terrorists, particularly the trigger-happy duo - Ajmal Kasab (nabbed alive) and his equally bloodthirsty associate Abu Ismail Khan – near the Cama and Albless Hospital – where more than 500 women, children, doctors and nurses trembled, waiting for help.


Date and his loyal band of Mumbai Police personnel valiantly battled Kasab-Khan, lurking in the darkness of the hospital precincts, firing indiscriminately at the police, before they abandoned that area and moved on to create mayhem at another location.


In the shootout which saved many lives of innocents at the hospital, Date and his men were also wounded; in fact, at one point he was even speculated to be dead in some sections of the media. But he not only survived and managed to recover fully he bounced back headlong into his passion of policing and garnered awards and accolades.


Among many honours, Date was awarded the President’s Medal (2007) and the President’s Police Medal (2008) for his meritorious and gallantry services to the country.


A sweet revenge!

When Sadanand V. Date helmed the NIA as its DG, it was time to ‘get even’ with one of the country’s most wanted fugitive criminals, Pakistani-Canadian national Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who was brought to India from the USA, in April 2025.


It was a satisfying moment for Date - who toiled months with Indian and US agencies to wade through the legal tangles to ensure his ‘date with Rana’ – as the 26/11 terror strikes plotter landed along with a NIA team in New Delhi.

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