Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi interacted with CEOs and Experts working in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), at his residence at Lok Kalyan Marg on 29 January. Prime Minister highlighted that India has a unique proposition of scale, diversity and democracy, due to which the world trusts India’s digital infrastructure. In line with his vision of ‘AI for All’, the Prime Minister stated that we need to create an impact with our technology as well as inspire the world. He also urged the CEOs and experts to make India a fertile destination for all global AI efforts. The high-level roundtable saw participation from CEOs of companies working in AI including Wipro, TCS, HCL Tech, Zoho Corporation, LTI Mindtree, Jio Platforms Ltd, AdaniConnex, Nxtra Data and Netweb Technologies along with experts from International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad, IIT Madras and IIT Bombay. Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw and Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Shri Jitin Prasada also participated in the interaction.

As India prepares for the Union Budget 2026-27, education leaders across schools, universities, research institutions, and the skilling ecosystem are calling for a decisive shift – from incremental funding to outcome-driven investment. With the government’s long-term vision of Viksit Bharat 2047 in focus, stakeholders argue that education must be treated not merely as social expenditure, but as strategic national capacity-building. From improving school learning outcomes and implementing NEP 2020 in full, to building innovation-led universities, accelerating translational research, fostering entrepreneurship, and making digital education more affordable. Prof. Sandeep K Shukla, Director, IIIT Hyderabad says geopolitical uncertainty makes indigenous capability-building unavoidable. “Without strong investment in higher education and R&D, India cannot build semiconductors, secure operating systems or advanced manufacturing,” he says, adding that faculty development must move beyond token programs to sustained, outcome-oriented training.

For most students, accessing textbooks is routine. For visually challenged students, it often means dealing with missing Braille editions, poor audio recordings, or expensive software. A new digital initiative developed at the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT-H) is now working to change that. The initiative, called Drishti Library, aims to make higher-education textbooks available in Braille and audiobook formats using artificial intelligence and language technologies. The project has been developed by researcher Krishna Tulsiyan under the guidance of Professors C V Jawahar and Gurpreet Singh Lehal and is part of the Government of India’s Bhashini mission, which focuses on building AI-based language tools for Indian languages. The platform was recently unveiled at a symposium on Language AI for Accessibility. It currently focuses on Punjabi language textbooks and is gradually expanding to other Indian languages and academic disciplines. Drishti Library uses optical character recognition (OCR) systems developed under a national consortium to scan and convert textbooks into accessible formats.