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 | 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 23, 2026 | Uncategorized, Whats new
The dot you do not see on the picture, is our planet Earth viewed from the Martian sky. It is a beautiful reminder of who we truly are and takes care of any hubris we may be tempted to fall into. This is all 7 billion of us viewed from the heavens above. Makes one feel tiny doesn’t it?
Maybe it is not hubris we should aim for, but its opposite Sophrosyne which is the virtue of healthy-mindedness and from there self-control or moderation guided by knowledge and balance. Sophrosyne is a Greek Goddess considered to be one of the good spirit that escaped Pandora’s box. She is the spirit of moderation, self-control, temperance, restraint, and discretion. Whereas we humans have embraced Hubris with great haste, few of us even know of Sophrosyne.
If we accept that we are the dot you do not see, then we are forced to abandon Hubris and seek Sophrosyne and remember that we are an infinitesimal part of a Universe we have no control on. All we can aspire to is temperance and self control. But sadly that is not the case around us.
If you look around, you see only hubris.
What do you call the politician who once in power forgets all promises and loses all self control and gets busy lining his nest?
What about the one who builds ginormous statues of himself or the one who cuts a birthday cake in the shape of the Parliament House.
What about big brother who wants to gobble others as we are seeing today
Is it not hubris?
What about all the laws and ordinances passed to ensure vote banks are seduced while important ones that may have benefitted many lie gathering dust like the women’s reservation bill
Politicians the world over are devoured by hubris
But that is not all. It is not those in power only; everyone seems to have been seduced by hubris
The young and restless of today have forgotten patience and think Rome was built in a day
No one is satisfied with what they have, even those who have plenty. You always want MORE and hubris seems to blind us all.
Greed, ego and hamartia will ultimately bring us all down.
And everything has conjured to make this possible. When we started our lives Ranjan and I, we had a scooter, no TV and very little in the bank. Things came slowly and steadily as we worked towards getting them. It was the BC days – before credit – and you had to live within your means. Now you can get anything you want. You are even solicited to do so as is proved by the number of calls you get offering you loans and credit cards. Moderation, self-control, temperance, restraint, and discretion are all thrown out of the window.
Hubris breeds impatience. Hubris coaxes illusions of grandeur. And we all fall for it. I guess I did too when I thought I could build Planet Why and let myself be swayed by an impossible dream. And is it not hubris that makes me want to see Project Why live beyond me. Why can I not just accept the maxim: The King is dead, long live the king.
It is time to take a serious look at the dot you cannot see and temper one’s life. It is time we embraced Sophrosyne and accept what wen have been given with gratitude and grace.
The dot you cannot see reminds one of how infinitesimal we are and accept this reality with humility.
Maybe it is time to reintroduce Sophrosyne in our lexicon and with it moderation, self-control, temperance, restraint, and discretion
by anouradha bakshi | Jan 18, 2026 | Uncategorized, Whats new
It is not what we GATHER but what we SCATTER, that tells what kind of life we have lived were the words on of the greatest athletes of our times began is speech at a red carpet gala function in Los Angeles in December 2025. He was to receive a life time achievement award. In a room. filled with unimaginable wealth he spoke with calm and intensity.
This is what he said: “We’re sitting here surrounded by comfort, success, and excess, while millions outside these walls are struggling just to survive. If you are blessed with influence and resources and choose not to act, then you are not neutral. You are complicit.” “Privilege is not something to enjoy privately. It’s a responsibility. When you have more than you need, it stops being just yours. Purpose must come before comfort.” “Legacy is not about titles or records,” he said. “It’s about how many lives you lift when no one is watching. Winning means nothing if it ends with you.”
Novak Djokovic announced that he will commit all future earnings from select endorsements, post-career projects, and a significant portion of his business ventures – estimated to exceed $160 million – toward global humanitarian efforts, including children’s education, access to healthcare, food security, and support for families living in extreme hardship.
The effect was immediate. The room fell silent. People were stunned, then everyone stood up and applauded with reverence.
I too was at first stunned when I read these words and then my heart filled with gratitude as here was a man who said what I had always felt at a gathering of the world’s most rich and famous. A chance I would never get’
Nevertheless I have been saying just that for the past 25 years to whoever is willing to listen notwithstanding the fact that many or actually most believed the it was an old woman rambling. I continued to walk the talk and over the past quarter of a century have reached out to thousands in need and will continue to do so till my last breath. I will also pray that Djokovic’s words will resonate and open the hearts of many. It is all about seeing with your heart.
Thank you Novak Djokovic for restoring my faith in humanity and setting a standard. God bless you.
PS. We wrote to the Novak Djokovic foundation and were humbles and elated to receive a prompt reply promising that they would consider our appeal when they start reaching out to other countries. We wait with bated breath.
by anouradha bakshi | Jan 10, 2026 | Uncategorized, Whats new
Memories are the footprints we leave in the sands of time
For the past few days I have been travelling down memory lane and that for a very special reason. In 2015 if my memory serves me right I decided to write the Project Why story. It was time when the elephant in the room ie what happens to Project Why after I go, loomed large and we were looking at diverse options. I somehow intuitively felt that Project Why as I had seeded and nurtured would soon become a thing of the past. It would take on a whole new avatar as it had to be freed from the tender clutches of an ageing lady who had somewhat kept it hidden from the world. A whole new chapter had to be written. I had mixed feelings as every parent whose child is about to leave the nest.
It was also the time whenI realised that the project why story till then was in great part in my head. It was time that I put it on paper. So I began writing in earnest and must have written about 150 pages when a series of unforeseeable events hit me and turned my life on its head. The house that had been my haven after the death of my parents needed to be broken down as it was falling apart. Emptying the house was heart breaking and left me rudderless. That was also the time when I started getting pain in my bones. The next three years were difficult as the pains grew and nothing helped. We moved back in early 2020 to a sparkling new house but to me it felt soulless. The pains were now excruciating. In May 2020 I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, another shock and then underwent chemo. For a long time I found myself unable to read more so write, It was frustrating as writing had somewhat defined me in more ways than one. It would take five long years for me to pick up my virtual pen again and when I dd I felt alive!
Now picking up something you wrote a decade ago is not easy specially when you are dealing with what is called chemo brain. My memory was mush; I. needed an anchor.That is when I remembered the over 1500 blogs I had written and decided to visit them again. A herculean task to say the least but one that proved a heartwarming and incredible experience.
What I thought would be a tedious task turned out to be a wonderful journey down memory lane.When I had written those 1500 blogs it was always subsequent to some occurrence or the other, some good, some disturbing and some even infuriating. As I read through those posts I realised that they were in no ways a linear account of Project Why’s happenings but more a personal reflection of what came my. way and many a times they influenced our journey, made us make course corrections, take on new challenges and steer us on the right path. Just going through 500 posts showed me how amazing our journey has been, a journey one should be proud of. So I am now rearing to finish the Project Why story so that everyone can share this amazing India Song as I recall the footprints we have left on the sands of time.
PS: I rarely put my picture on a blog but decided to share an old snapshot of Utpal, Kiran and me just to remember the good old days!
