At 6 a.m. on May 25, thirteen-year-old Malavath Poorna became the youngest girl to climb the world’s tallest peak. She had carried with her a photograph of Dalit leader Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and the Tricolour in a plastic bag acquired from a fancy store in Secunderabad. Among her belongings was also a flag of her school, the Andhra Pradesh Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (APSWREIS), where Poorna is completing Class IX from the Nizamabad district, now in the newly-created Telangana State. Poorna is a ‘Swaero’, just as each one of the 1.7 lakh students who study at the 291 APSWREIS schools spread across the now divided Andhra Pradesh are known. When the going got tough during her ascent to ...

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