GITT is an institute that teaches self defence to women. It started as a reaction to the violence I saw around me. When I was in college, girls would complain of eve-teasing, molestation, being followed at night and there was even a case of attempted rape.

I had learnt martial arts for five years so these girls would ask me to come with them to beat up those who harassed them. But I would not agree to that as I felt it was not a long term solution. These girls needed to learn how to protect themselves.

So I started teaching a class of about 4 girl students after college hours. Soon all the eve-teasing against these girls stopped because they no longer looked like victims. They had changed from inside and that change reflected in their faces.

In the last one year since GITT has been formed, along with three friends, I have had numerous workshops in cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. We have trained over 350 girls and taught them how to protect themselves.

I dream of building an identity for my students, a martial identity.

What I think India needs most is practical education. I hope one day the Level 1 of the GITT course will be introduced in schools.

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India's biggest problem today is the poor literacy levels. Education can bring about the change we want. We are struggling with things like poverty and population. Greater literacy will take care of both these problems to a large extent.