by anouradha bakshi | Feb 14, 2026 | Uncategorized, Whats new
India recently hosted the India AI Impact Summit! Anchored in the principles of People, Planet, and Progress, it envisions a future where AI advances humanity, fosters inclusive growth, and safeguards our shared planet. AI is here to stay! Some go as far as saying that it will take over the world by 2050. But we are not there yet. However we have to accept the indubitable fact that AI has transformed the job scenario. And to succeed children will have to be taught a whole new set of skills that are a far cry from what we are teaching them today.
Before I go further, I will just like share my own experience with AI. A few weeks back I did not know much about AI. I decided to take a short online course. After the course I tiptoed into this new world and lo and behold was left gobsmacked at the amazing power of this tool. Each day was a new discovery as I ventured into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and more. Jobs like mine – translator/interpreter – have already vanished. Write a text and any of the AI assistants will translate it in seconds to another language. You can have a conversation with these assistants and they can be quite witty! You want to write a report, a proposal anything and AI will do it for you. It performs, analyses, and generates complex content. The catch is to use the correct prompts. That is what needs to be mastered. I can see how you can get drawn into this world.
In an article entitled Ten 21st-century skills every student needs, the World Economic Forum states: The gap between the skills people learn and the skills people need is becoming more obvious, as traditional learning falls short of equipping students with the knowledge they need to thrive. Today’s job candidates must be able to collaborate, communicate and solve problems – skills developed mainly through social and emotional learning (SEL). Combined with traditional skills, this social and emotional proficiency will equip students to succeed in the evolving digital economy.
So the new skills needed are : Learning and innovation skills: critical thinking and problem solving, communications and collaboration, creativity and innovation. Digital literacy skills: information literacy, media literacy, Information and communication technologies (ICT) literacy Career and life skills: flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural interaction, productivity and accountability.
At present children are stuck in the traditional curriculum created by the British with the aim of making obedient pen pushers. The new skills are the exact opposite as they want people to think out of the box. As I have often said, children do not have the time to wait for policies to be changed. By the time new policies are put in place a whole set of children would be out of school and propelled into the work world armed with useless skills.
We at Project Why cannot let this happen. It is time to act.
Now you cannot navigate the AI universe without two basic skills: computer knowledge and a command of English. So the first step we have taken is to have computer and English classes from class one itself! The children are loving it. A little girl shared very proudly that she now knew how to start and shut a computer. Her eyes lit up when she told me that. Give a few years and she will master both.
The bigger challenge was to work out way of incorporating these new set of skills into the present curriculum. How do you weave skills like critical thinking or creativity into the subjects being taught. My incredible team has worked out a way to do so from class I itself. We are at present training and getting the teaches onboard as they are the main stakeholders. Then we run a pilot and come April 1, we go all guns blazing.
We intend to handhold the little ones till class V but then we want to steer the children towards self learning and independent studies so that by class IX children can study independently. We also want to accustom the children to digital learning and make them comfortable with this approach. Thanks to the Adish and Asha Jain Foundation we have a state-of-the-art recording studio where we have already recorded lessons for classes IX and X and plan to do it for all classes. We want our children to be comfortable with taking online classes as that would enable them to increase their skill sets.
This may sound ambitious but needs to be done if we want our children to be ready for the ever-changing work scenario. There will be resistance I know from both teachers and kids as I am pulling them out of their comfort zone and throwing in the deep end of the pool. But them at Project Why we have never shied away from a challenge.
We are at crossroads but I know that we will overcome. Wish us luck!
by anouradha bakshi | Feb 3, 2026 | Whats new
The picture above is of Akash Saroj. He is not a Project Why student. He is a delivery agent in Delhi or what is known as a gig worker but he is the kind of person I would like ALL my Project children to know about. He proves in no uncertain terms that compassion does not require one to be rich. I urge you to read his story.
Akash works hard like all delivery agents to care for his family but still finds the time and the resources to help others. He can be seen feeding a rickshaw puller and help repair his vehicle or giving blankets to those sleeping in the cold. He even sets aside some of his earnings to feed animals. He always remains alert to people who may be in need.
He learnt compassion from his father, a poor labourer who he lost tragically some time back. He says ” My father’s death taught me a lesson for life. I realized that I realized that kindness is what is so much missing from this world. I learnt the meaning of charity from him. Despite being poor, he helped others in whatever way he could.”
Compassion is what I would like my kids to learn. Sadly in today’s world it is neither taught in families, nor in schools. Moral studies was removed from the curriculum a long time back sacrificed at the alter of scientific, democratic, and secular education. Moreover with the advent of nuclear families, gone are the days when we heard stories at grandma’s knee. Teachers are no more role models. The entertainment industry has also moved on from moral content and today’s children are not readers but passive consumers of what the screen throws at them.
It is heartwarming to learn that the NEP (New Education Policy) 2020 plans on incorporating ethics, values, and character building directly into the curriculum but that will take time and as I have always held time is something that children do not have. Hence the importance of sharing such stories with children in the hope of building a new set of unsung heroes.
The moral of this story is that compassion does not require you to be rich, kindness does not require wealth.
I just. would like to share a quote of Jack London: A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog. Think about it.
by anouradha bakshi | Feb 2, 2026 | Anou's Blog, Uncategorized
When I decided to set up a not-for-profit in the memory of my parents and to pay a debt I felt I owed my country as I had lived an extremely privileged life, I had already worn several hats and interacted with people from diverse origins and status. Having been a professor, an interpreter, a social secretary amongst other things I had rubbed shoulders with a wide variety of souls and thought I was well versed in human nature! I could not have imagined how wrong I was and how taking one tiny step across an invisible line would change things forever.
Today, with over two decades of Project Why under my skin, I feel I am competent to look back at the lessons that came my way after my fifth decade, a time when one believes one has seen and learnt all. I wonder what is it that makes you change the way you look at things and once again I find myself thinking of St Exupery and his Little Prince. Maybe my life too has been a voyage across planets each more bewildering than the other, and Project Why was the one where the maxim of the Fox was truly validated. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. The moment I decided to seed Project Why, I could only see with my heart!
A dear friend suggested I write about the 5 things that Project Why taught me about people. This is something I had never thought of so it is a journey of self discovery I share with you.
The first ‘people’ that comes to mind when I think about Project Why is undoubtedly Manu. I have said it many things but repeat it again: if not for Manu there may have not been Project Why. The lesson he taught me was to never say die, but more than, that that no life, no matter how wretched it may seem, is without purpose. Every life has a meaning and needs to be respected and celebrated. Manu’s was to see I set up Project Why. To most Manu would simply be an annoying mentally and physically challenged beggar, but to me he was my inspiration, my mirror and the one who showed me the way. He taught me to respect every human being that came my way.
The next thing that Project Why taught me about people was that if you ever reached out to help someone in need, there was no going back. It was a one way street. No one taught me this lesson more than my darling Utpal. When I reached out to save him from his third degree burns and allowed him to walk into my heart, I never knew it was a till death do us part deal. I had thought that I could heal his wounds and help his family look after him, maybe pay his school fees and be present when needed. That was not to be. Utpal became my foster child and today he is part of my life forever. This is also a lesson I follow for Project Why. No matter how difficult things look and are, there is no going back. My inner most desire is to see Project Why live beyond me.
Th next thing Project Why taught me about people is that if you truly trust and believe in someone, they live up to your trust more that 100%! This was proved to me in ample measure by the wonderful team I picked up from the community. Everyone warned me that it would be an impossible task but I instinctively knew that I was making the right decision. And though none of them had the degrees and diplomas, the profile and experience each one has done me proud and never made me regret my decision. I simply had to make them believe that I trusted them and the rest was history.
The next thing Project Why taught me about people is that there is more good than bad in this world, that values like compassion and generosity exist in ample measure in most people and simply need to be ferreted out. The way to do it is to be brutally honest and candid. One of the most beautiful things Project Why created is a wonderful network of souls from the world over and of all ages who have reached out to help and support Project Why. All I had to do was to tell my story from the heart and me the only child, the orphan got the most incredibly beautiful and supportive family and was smothered in so much love that it will take me many lives to pay back. I feel so blessed.
And last but maybe not the least Project Why taught me things I never knew existed about another ‘people’ and that is me. The reclusive almost hermit like person I had become after losing my parents, the person who ran away from numbers and could not even balance her home budget, the person who could never ask for the money that was owed to her become almost extrovert and even gregarious and began asking for help unabashedly for the children she had decided to make hers. I found within me qualities I never knew I possessed. Project Why became a true discovery of myself!
by anouradha bakshi | Jan 31, 2026 | Uncategorized, Whats new
Last week India celebrated its 77th Republic Day. The Gods had been kind as the day was sunny, the sky blue and the wind chilly. I have always made it a point to watch the parade on TV though there was time when I braved all odds and went to see the parade in situ. And each and every time, with obsessive regularity I am moved beyond words. my eyes often moist, my throat constricted. It was the same yesterday. I guess my patriotism and love for India is deep seated and part of my DNA thanks to my amazing parents.
‘Don’t lose faith in India’ were the dying words of my father when he breathed his last thirty five years ago. He was 80+. He was the descendant of an indentured labourer who had left his home land in the late XIX century. The reasons for his departure are as picturesque as your imagination would let you believe.We were told he was part of the 1857 war of freedom. Whatever they be, they compelled a man to leave everything and accept being enslaved and bear a number. His was 354495. He managed to secure his freedom and build life once again with determination and success. I am proof of that. Forgive this aside but it needed to be said.
Had I remained ensconced in my comfortable, ordinary and insipid life, it perhaps would have been easier to hold on to that faith, but I chose to walk the untrodden path that questioned that faith far too many times and needed me to hold on to it drawing on shreds of logic and passion. But hold on I did as I could not forget the sacrifices my parents made for the country they loved unquestionably. My mom was even willing to sacrifice motherhood to the alter of freedom. She chose to give me life in a free India thus making its freedom sine qua non to my very essence.
I grew up on foreign shores but the love for India was lovingly woven into the fabric of my heart and soul by my two love stricken parents. The image of India that is seared in my heart is one of a land of tolerance, understanding and humanity. My parents never failed to teach me to respect the culture and values of the countries I grew up in and to me Indianness meant all embracing faith. I was proud of my heritage.
For the past years I have slowly had my faith put to the test. I held on to it. When the going was too tough I shut my eyes and remembered my parents or looked deep into the eyes of a very deprived kid and knew I had to carry on just for that child.
We humans are strange bods! We have the capability of getting inured to things and even stop seeing them. I guess that happened to me too as I saw a beggar child, read about a rape or a killing and turned to my fragile coping strategies.
Today children still die every day of malnutrition related disease. I have been going through my blogs which pan over two decades. I have written on this issue many times over the years and was shocked to see that the statistic remained the same: 5000 children every day. As I had not blogged for a few years courtesy my health, I decided to check on the figures again today and to my utmost dismay found out that the figure varied from 2000 to 5000 death a day. Though there is some improvement, 2000 death is still too much. Is 77 years not enough to stop malnutrition? How des one keep the faith.
The other issue that appears as a let motif in my blogs is rape and child abuse. It is relentless @92 rapes a day notwithstanding child abuse. And these are government statistics. The latest rape of a 11 year old happened in Delhi last week. Things have not changed and you wonder why? Is it lack of political will? Is it our social fabric? Is it gender inequality? Maybe all of the above. It is not the death penalty we often clamour for that will change things. What will change matters is social change when every family accepts that boys and girls are equal and should be treated so. But that is long haul in a country where patriarchy still loams large.
The other startling fact is the ever growing gap between rich and poor. Here again one wonders why and above all what can one do?
So where to you go to keep the wavering flame of your faith alive? The usual coping strategies seem to be floundering. New ones need to be sought if you do not want to live your life in fear. One option is to be fatalist and we Indians are privileged as we have karma to explain what cannot be. But what is the karma of a two year old that is brutally gang raped? Another option is to hope that someone among those who steer the country will intervene and say: ENOUGH but sadly that too seems to be a chimera.
After seven decades of Independence there are still 5000 children who die every day for want of clean water and adequate food, child labour and abuse flourishes, women are still second class citizens and millions are deprived of basic dignity.
But what I would want to say to those who hold us to ransom today is that you cannot kill the spirit of India. What your aberrations are doing is waking up the deadened consciences of far too many who cannot keep mute anymore. There is an anger slowly brewing, an anger that is breaking the seemingly impregnable walls of comfort and finding its voice.
India is a blessed land. Let us not for get that, and yes Papa, I for one will not lose faith in India till my last breath.
by anouradha bakshi | Jan 30, 2026 | Anou's Blog, Uncategorized
When I decided to cross the proverbial Rubicon, to leave the armchair I had sunk in post losing my parents in an almost catatonic state, I did not know where the journey would take me. I just knew I had to step out and so I did. I also knew that it was time to redeem a pledge made on a hot summer day in a village in Bihar to pay back for all that I had been given. Having discovered my ‘roots’ I realised that it was an accident of history that propelled me into this side of the divide. I should have been on the other. Anyway what matters was that the time had come to walk the talk.
I had no road map then. I had to create one. I had always been disturbed by the plight of children begging at red lights. To me every child had a right to education and a better life but for these kids there seemed to be no hope. Begging was a ‘profession’ a ‘business’ and as long as there were people who would give money, it simply thrived. It was all demand and supply so if one cut the demand… So I thought.
So why not address this issue as part of my paying back journey. After much brainstorming with like minded souls, one came up with, what naive me believed, a programme whereby we would urge people to give nutrition instead of coins. And when the business of using children to beg would not be lucrative, maybe it would stop. How foolish was I! Today a quarter of century later. there are as many children begging at red lights as there were then. You got it right, our nutritive biscuits project died a quick death and we were left to lick our wounds.
For years I drove by the same crossing under the Nehru Place flyover. Many families live under this bridge. Their profession: begging. If you drive past early in the morning you will see women cooking on make shift stoves. The children are already knowing at car windows in the hope of an elusive coin.There use to be a little girl who was a baby in her mother’s arm when I first laid eyes on her. Then she grew up and must have been about 2 or 3 when one Sunday as I drove by I saw her being initiated in the art of begging.
As years went by she grew up and we made friends! She knew I never gave money and most of the time carried fruit or biscuits in my three wheeler. One day she came running and asked me for chocorate the generic time all the beggar children who knew I did not give money used when they saw. My little girl with huge light eyes is now all grown up and I guess she will be married and soon produce children who will follow her footsteps.
Some years back we started a small outreach for the beggar children of Kalka Mandir. They are the ones in this picture. You would never say they are beggars. They look just like any other children all smiles and giggles. Kalka Mandir as all temples is home to many beggars. There is a small shelter where women go when they are expecting and about to deliver. As many women come with their older kids, we decided to run our first lass there. For some time it was a dream come true and that is where I met my bucket baby. But then some people did not like what we were doing and threw us out. We tried in two there locations but we sadly had to close. I felt the look more than anyone else. This was not the first time happened to us. We had earlier tried to teach the children under the flyover close to mu house and the children were thrilled, but again we are shooed away by some men. I guess they did not want the children to get the ‘taste’ of anything other than panhandling. They knew that education had the power to rock the boat.
We rarely look at a beggar in the eye. Maybe because we feel uncomfortable or guilty. I do not know. However it is a beggar woman who taught me one of the greatest lesson or my life. I was in college and had gone to Connaught Place for some errand. A beggar woman started following me asking me for a few coins. That day my pocket was empty so I stopped, looked her in the eye and told her gently I do not have anything today. I am sorry. She took both my hands in hers and said to me “you have given me more than you can imagine” I was perplexed not quite understanding till she added ” you looked me in the eye; you acknowledged me as a human being”. I can never forget those words and since that day have always looked at beggars in their eyes.
Beggars are human beings first and foremost. Many beggar parents in Kalka Mandir did send their children to school.Should you visit in the morning you will see many children in clean uniforms, their tresses coiffed beautifully ready to go to school. The children. are eager to go to school and learn and parents do their best. I remember a beggar woman sitting on a step with her two school going children and holding a copy book and a pencil. She was helping her kids with their homework. I asked her if she had been to school and she proudly answered, ”I have studied till class III!”. One wonders what brought her to where she is now.
Beggar parents do care for their children. How can I gorget my beggar friend Rani whose compassion touched me. She had a niece who was orphaned and rather than send her back to the village decided to keep her to ensure she get and education! And what was even more touching was the fact that many of the beggars who were sitting around seconded her decision and offered whatever help they could proffer. But what moved me was how the very people we reject and sneer at, the ones that live on our so called ‘charity’ had a heart far larger than those who live behind gates or in impregnable mansions.
The children you see in the picture are children just like ours. They deserve a childhood, an education and much more. When will we get outraged at the kids who knocks at our car window at a red light and wake up and do something. I do not know.
I only know that it is the plight of a young beggar that shook me out of my torpor and compelled me to act. if not for Manu there may have not been Project Why. The lesson he taught me was to never say die, but more than, that that no life, no matter how wretched it may seem, is without purpose. Every life has a meaning and needs to be respected and celebrated. Manu’s was to see I set up Project Why. To most Manu would simply be an annoying mentally and physically challenged beggar, but to me he was my inspiration, my mirror and the one who showed me the way. He taught me to respect every human being that came my way. I live by his maxim.
So next time a beggar child knocks at your car window, don’t look away. You do not know what miracle is hidden in her eyes.
