.jpeg)
I had written about Anand Kumar back in 2014, when his efforts to change the landscape of rural Bihar were in their infancy. He came to my attention when I watched a documentary about his ambition to coach his handpicked students from lower strata of society to achieve 100% admission to IIT. He had started the Super 30 programme in 2002. Anand was a Mathematical whiz who qualified to read Mathematics at Cambridge University but had to opt out due to financial constraints. He decided to start an institute instead.
Much time had passed since then.
Now, in 2026, in the company of some friends from Bihar who happened to be Ananji Kumarji’s students, I learned that he was in town. While attending a conference in Kuala Lumpur, he managed to set aside some time to meet up with his former students who had done well. I joined in as an independent observer.
It was an evening filled with an overflow of emotions, but not of the melodramatic kind. It was a meeting of grateful students who could not find a better way to express their gratitude to their teacher, who had lifted them out of the yoke of poverty and carried them to the international arena. Many of the students had cracked their IIT examinations, gone on to join MNCs, and completed postgraduate studies at overseas institutes of repute. Within a single generation, through education, they had leapfrogged themselves and their families up the food chain.
The Government of India also recognised Anandji's selfless efforts by honouring him with one of its highest civilian awards, the Padma Shri. Despite all the accolades behind his name, he continues his philanthropic work. Anand Kumar had a one-to-one informal session with his gleaming students and their young families, who had nothing but admiration for him. They feel that he played a part in the recent resurgence of the State of Bihar towards prosperity, after so long being cast out as the land of gundas, poverty, and chaos. Maybe one day, it will reach the glory days when Nalanda University and the Magadha Empire defined Bharat, which is also India.
https://www.riflerangeboy.com/2014/06/then-what.html
Farouk Gulsara (asokansham@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.
