The book, Moving of Mountains: The Story of the Agastya International Foundation, by Adhirath Sethi is an inspiring book about a 25-year journey to improve education in India. It shares how science was brought to remote areas and how spaces were created for poor children to explore, question, and create. Agastya’s work was featured last year in a popular Netflix show at its Mumbai Science Centre. One particularly compelling story is that of Jhunjhunwala, who began a meeting with Agastya’s Ramjee disinterested, but was so moved that he eventually invested Rs 50 crore to help revolutionise the education system.

The following is an extract from the book:

On a blindingly bright day in the summer of 2012, the mood on the Agastya campus was considerably more electric than usual. The preceding five years had seen new buildings brought to life, including the Jhunjhunwala Discovery Centre, a planetarium, and a host of other labs and accommodation. With this infrastructure, the campus was able to welcome around 500 children from surrounding schools each day. Hence, it was not unusual to see and hear groups of children animatedly chatting and running around, clearly enthused by their day on campus.

But this particular day was different. All in all, a few thousand children and scores of their teachers flocked to the Agastya campus eager to catch a glimpse of the iconic man whose visit had been announced a few weeks ago.

Ramji’s first meeting with Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam happened in 2003, when Dr Kalam was still president of India. The introduction had been made via scientists who had worked with Kalam in the past and were now friends of Agastya. These included Dr R. Krishnan and K. Ramchand, who had heard Ramji speak at a seminar at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in 2001 and had subsequently invited him over for dinner. The connection was further strengthened by Dr Aatre, who had succeeded Dr Kalam as the head of the Defence Research and Development Organisation.

‘My first meeting with Dr Kalam took place at his office at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the presidential palace in Delhi,’ Ramji recalls. ‘Dr Kalam questioned me about my plans. Why had I returned to India? What did I hope to achieve? He was keen to know about the mobile science lab that we had launched less than six months ago in........

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