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The Inherent Importance of Invisible India

The Morning Standard

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February 23, 2025

Invisible India has no physical borders, no official recognition. It is an India of irresistible ideas.

- BY INVITATION Debashis Chatterjee Author, Professor & Director, IIM Kozhikode

In the bustling streets of Kochi, a chaiwalah stands at his stall. In one hand, he holds a kettle; in the other, a smartphone. He manages orders through a digital payment app. A technology startup in Bengaluru commences its day with meditation, not as a fad, but to align the team's energies-connecting to a cosmic mainframe before engaging with lines of code. India's engagement with technology is born of necessity. With a population exceeding a billion, solutions are not found in textbooks. Invisible India is not in power corridors but in villages where resilience reigns. In a town with daily power cuts, a boy pedals a bicycle-powered generator, lighting his sister's UPSC studies. It's innovation beyond textbooks-simple, powerful, and uniquely Indian.

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