Six-year-old dies after teacher slaps him in Indian classroom, sparking outcry

A six-year-old boy named Pranay Tej left for school one Thursday morning in Visakhapatnam, India, and never returned — struck by his teacher in a classroom where security cameras recorded everything. His death has reopened a wound that never fully closed: the widespread use of physical punishment in Indian schools, prohibited by law yet practiced in roughly four out of five low-income classrooms. Authorities have launched investigations and formed committees, but the deeper question is whether a tragedy captured on video will finally compel a reckoning that statistics alone never could.