Desi talk

www.desitalkchicago.com – that’s all you need to know 4 OPINION August 7, 2026 Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of the authors and Parikh Worldwide Media does not officially endorse, and is not responsible or liable for them. - Continued On Page 6 Education Needs A Radical Overhaul For The AI Age AI can provide every child with a personalised tutor that speaks their mother tongue, adapts to their pace, and presents ideas through tailored pathways I ndia has reached a rare national consensus: Educa- tion must change. The outrage over examination leaks and widespread corruption creates an opportunity to go far beyond securing question papers, punish- ing brokers, or tightening supervision. India has the chance to shed the colonial baggage that has constrained its classrooms for generations — and build an education system for the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The education system clearly demands a radical over- haul and AI can help India build something far better. (Shutterstock) The education system clearly demands a radical over- haul and AI can help India build something far better. (Shutterstock) Examinations have long defined learning in India, with children spending their formative years memorising answers and chasing test scores, rarely given the ability to reason, question, create, or solve real-world prob- lems. This fixation on high-stakes testing has created an economy of desperation and corruption. When a single score can dictate a child’s entire future, marks become a commodity, coaching becomes a multibillion-dollar industry, and stolen papers become extraordinarily valu- able. Corrupt officials, brokers, and criminal syndicates profit from families driven by the fear that one exam will make or break their children’s lives. Also Read: NEP at six: Is India’s education system ready for the AI age? AI will make this old form of cheating look primi- tive. Students already use AI to write essays, generate research papers, produce code, and answer examination questions — all while understanding virtually none of it. The next wave of academic fraud will no longer rely on officials secretly selling leaked papers. Instead, machines will quietly perform the very work that schools continue to mistake for learning. The education system clearly demands a radical over- haul and AI can help India build something far better. But to understand what should replace the old model, we must first understand how we arrived here. The British imposed an educational model engineered entirely to serve an empire. They required compliant clerks and obedient administrators to enable them to govern a vast nation. Examinations were used to sort In- dians by recall, conformity, and usefulness to their white masters. Thomas Macaulay explicitly sought to create a class that was Indian by birth, but English in intellect, tastes, and opinions — sidelining India’s rich traditions of phi- losophy, mathematics, medicine, and debate. A civilisa- tion that gave the world Nalanda and Takshashila was subjugated and trained to seek legitimacy from foreign rulers. India won independence, but sadly the structural baggage of colonial education remained. The country now has the chance to complete the unfinished work of independence: By designing a system that once again develops original thinkers, pioneering scientists, bold entrepreneurs, visionaries, and courageous leaders. That transformation begins by redefining learning itself, and fortunately, India already knows how— be- cause it taught the world how to learn. Long before stan- dardised testing and rigid classrooms, education across India was anchored in the guru-shishya tradition and the gurukula. Learning was rooted in a personal relationship with a teacher who understood each student’s unique temperament, abilities, and pace. Teaching was tailored to the individual, weaving knowledge together with char- acter, discipline, curiosity, and the courage to ask difficult questions. That ancient principle remains completely relevant today: Every child learns differently, and education becomes transformative when it nurtures the whole person. Technology, for the first time, allows us to apply this concept at scale. AI can provide every child with a personalised tutor that speaks their mother tongue, adapts to their pace, and presents ideas through tailored pathways. It can identify gaps in comprehension and democratise quality instruction across all languages. Relieved of repetitive drills and mechanical grading, teachers are freed for their highest purpose: mentoring students, cultivating judgment, and igniting curiosity. India must also restore its tradition of disciplined intellectual debate, and the world’s greatest historic cen- tre of learning is once again showing the way forward. Nalanda University, in its revived form, has resurrected strrtha — the rigorous examination of ideas through structured dialogue and argument. In this tradition, scholars were required to master opposing positions, present concrete evidence, defend their logic, and listen carefully before responding. Also Read: Focusing on processes, not outcomes, as base for education reforms Nalanda has integrated strrtha into its academic calendar and convocation process, requiring students to defend their research orally before panels of scholars. This practice relies on two pillars: Prvapaka, demonstrat- ing a thorough understanding of the opposing argument, and Uttarapaka, delivering a reasoned, evidence-based response. Students are judged on logic, evidence, and intellectual honesty, rather than merely the polish of a written submission. This model offers the ultimate antidote to AI-gen- erated slop. A student can easily prompt a machine to produce an impressive paper, but genuine understanding is tested when asked: Why do you hold this view?What evidence contradicts your thesis?What assumptions are you making? Borrowed words always collapse under seri- ous questioning. Primary and secondary schools should embrace this same principle. Students should spend more time dis- cussing ideas, solving real-world challenges, conducting experiments, and defending their work. Major projects should feature oral defences. An AI-generated answer offers little protection when a student must explain the reasoning and apply it to a new problem. India should continue to absorb the best of western science and technology, but the oppressive machinery left behind by the British must no longer define the limits of its ambition. That system served an empire and re- warded passivity, rote learning, fuelled systemic corrup- tion, and constrained generations of Indian genius. India has finally outgrown it. This is the moment to free teachers to inspire, give ev- ery child a personalised path to mastery, and restore dialogue, questioning, and intellec- tual courage to the heart of the classroom. India once taught the world how to learn. In the age of AI, it has the opportunity — and the duty — to do so again. Vivek Wadhwa is CEO, Vionix Biosciences. The views expressed are personal By VivekWadhwa PHOTO:CourtesyVivekWadhwa N ewYork City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has just published details of how he plans to fulfill his campaign pledge to open five city-owned grocery stores across the city. On Monday, he released his “Recipe for Affordability” proposal and a call for grocery store operators to manage the coming stores. That confirms that rather than government-managed locations, these city-owned stores will really just be deliv- ering a trumped-up subsidy. The stores will carry a core basket of produce, meats, and other groceries placed on average 30 percent below market prices. But American supermarkets net just 1 to 4 percent profit margins on sales, so you can’t wring out a 30 percent discount just by forswearing profits. The proposal is therefore quite candid that the difference will be made up by taxpayers. It promises to “offer subsidies that will lower grocery prices” and admits that “sustaining these lower prices will require targeted public invest- ment.” That undisclosed subsidy total comes on top of $70 million to build out the stores, plus waived rent and prop- erty taxes on city-provided sites. This is a more disguised subsidy, of course. A public site used for a store is one that isn’t sold, leased, or used for other municipal func- tions, such as housing or schools. Costs will materialize when NYC must rent space for functions it could’ve put at the locations it owns or when it taxes NewYorkers for money it could’ve got by selling land. Much media attention has focused on the distortive effects on competition. But five subsidized stores are unlikely to have a huge effect citywide. And because Mamdani says the stores won’t stock hot food, beer, or cigarettes, plenty of grocery and bodega revenue is insu- lated. Yet there will probably be localized undercutting of independent stores on thin margins in the city blocks im- mediately surrounding each government entity. Whether local consumers end up with more or fewer choices is ambiguous, depending on how neighboring grocers respond to the new government competitor. The deeper problem is the distortions steep subsi- dies will bring over time. Lower out-of-pocket costs on popular staples will generate excess demand and arbi- trage opportunities for resellers. That invites the familiar failure of subsidized retail—some combination of empty shelves, purchase limits, customers wasting time looking for goods, long lines, and black market resale. Over time, there will be pressure for more subsidies and enforce- ment costs to overcome these challenges. And there’s no guarantee, of course, that the people who get access to the subsidized goods will be the poorest families strug- gling to make ends meet. Government ownership layers on further risks that subsidies will grow. The plan promises “best-in-class wages and benefits” and preferences for favored local vendors. That’ll inevitably add running costs at the same time Mamdani wants to lower final prices. Then there will be political reasons to favor certain suppliers. With voters on all sides—shoppers, employees, and wholesal- ers—the size of the grocery subsidies will tend to drift higher as the mayor tries to appease everyone. AsWhole Foods co-founder John Mackey put it when I interviewed Mamdani’s Grocery Plan Is Mainly Just More Subsidies By Ryan Bourne and Nathan Miller, Cato.org