India, Sept. 5 -- Stand outside almost any school at opening or closing time and a familiar sight unfolds: small children dwarfed by oversized backpacks, some seemingly carrying more than their young shoulders can bear.

It would be one thing if India had never recognised the problem. But we have. It has been studied, debated and translated into a national policy that even sets out how much a child should reasonably be expected to carry. The real question, then, is not whether we know the burden exists. It is why so many children are still carrying it.

India has around 24.72 crore school students across roughly 14.67 lakh schools. Even a seemingly mundane question such as backpack weight, therefore, becomes an issue of enormous scale.

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