In Vaitarna, in Nashik’s Igatpuri town, a group of zilla parishad school students form a circle, jotting down notes as they listen to a Marathi diction lesson via a portable radio device that sits on a chair placed in the centre. This radio is one of hundreds distributed among schools following a crowd-funding effort to reach out to the vulnerable families and their children in the region. These radio devices are critical for those students who don’t have Internet access to continue their classes in the pandemic. Close to 150 teachers of municipal and zilla parishad schools in the area are behind the initiative, and their work saw fruition during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic in June 2020.

When the nationwide lockdown was imposed in March 2020, the education sector like so many others, was impacted overnight. Kids were to be cooped up at home, indefinitely. Venturing out would mean making yourself vulnerable to an infection that was clearly contagious and fatal, with no scientific evidence yet about how gravely it affected kids. Teachers, on the other hand, were growing restless. “Private and aided schools swiftly moved their lectures online. What would happen to kids who couldn’t  afford a tablet, laptop or smartphone? Or those whose families owned only one phone that one of their parents took to work?” asks Ruchita Thakur, 24.