Catch the Real Villains If You Can
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By Amitabh Srivastava, Edited by Adam Rizvi, The India Observer, TIO: In a ghastly real-life scene this week, three sisters jumped to their deaths from a house in Uttar Pradesh—and the blame is squarely on the dead.
Beginning with the police, followed by parents, neighbours, and even social workers, everyone seems eager to place the onus of the crime on children who are no longer alive to defend themselves.
The girls, aged 16, 14, and 12, are being blamed for not going to school. They are accused of being addicted to Korean games on their mobile phones. They are further pronounced guilty for having written an eight-page note in which they reportedly “confessed” to being depressed because their phones were taken away.
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In effect, they are being blamed for being born at all.
Surprisingly, this is not being framed as a “girls’ issue,” although the father had gone for a second marriage only because his first wife could not bear children. After the second marriage, the first wife also conceived—and like a “cultured, good human being,” he kept both wives and all four children under the same roof. One of the children was a boy; he did not join his sisters in what the media is now calling a “mission suicide.”
Some academics are already wondering whether NI (natural intelligence) could lead to such catastrophic outcomes—and what, then, might happen to those addicted to AI.
Meanwhile, in an entirely unrelated development, the Union Budget for 2026–27, announced on February 1, claimed to be giving a “big push” to artificial intelligence by allocating ₹1,000 crore. This announcement was greeted with loud desk-thumping in the Indian Parliament.
Several countries have already banned mobile phones for children. In India too, some states are considering keeping mobiles out of children’s reach—but there are far more lobbies opposing such bans than supporting them.
Naturally, the stakes are high.
Ever since COVID made work-from-home mandatory across the globe, the most affected have been teachers and students, who became entirely dependent on mobiles and laptops for assignments and examinations. COVID is officially over, but the dependence is permanent.
Teachers no longer need to write assignments in individual diaries, as was the practice when we were children. A single lesson sent on a mobile phone can now reach hundreds of students instantly. It suits school managements too—attendance checking is no longer mandatory.
But here, the issue is not efficiency or technology. The issue is suicide.
The three girls were not attending school because their father could not afford it. This is the harsh reality of an India that exists beyond slogans, beyond GDP figures, beyond global treaties signed under flashing camera bulbs.
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So what do parents do to keep children “occupied”? They hand them mobile phones loaded with addictive gaming apps. In this case, it was Korean games that kept the girls so engrossed that they jumped from a third-floor building, leaving behind a letter saying “sorry.”
But sorry for what? For dying? Or was the letter a convenient ploy to absolve the parents of any blame for neglect—or even abetment to suicide?
Frankly, I am now waiting for the day when grown men are reported to have committed suicide because they were unable to access child pornography on their systems.
About a month ago, the issue of AI—specifically platforms linked to Elon Musk—generating images of undressed minors was raised in a committee of the Indian Parliament. Opposition leader Priyanka Chaturvedi held a press conference to highlight how AI tools were being misused by adults to generate child pornography, an offence in almost every part of the world.
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Elon Musk issued an apology and promised that accounts misusing the technology would be shut down.
Following protests, several countries banned Grok. India, however—with the largest population of young people in the world—has not done so yet, citing “strategic reasons.”
Last week, there were raids on some of Musk’s offices in France, which he dismissed as politically motivated.
These raids, however, have not dented Elon Musk’s wealth—and that, apparently, is good for everyone.
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Curated by Humra Kidwai
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