Bengaluru, Oct. 5 -- By 1 pm on 11 September, people crowded in at the zila panchayat hall, in Dharwad, for what was billed as a "learning workshop" on jobs and skills. District officials, principals from industrial training institutes (ITIs), small and medium industrialists from the surrounding clusters, and rows of students in pressed shirts.

Outside, the late monsoon heat clung to the air; inside, a brass gong punctuated each speaker's turn at the microphone.

One official began with pride. Hubballi-Dharwad, he said, had always been more than just a twin city: an educational capital, a cultural centre, a trading hub. "If this experiment succeeds anywhere, it should be here," he told the room.

But almost immediately, the conversation ...