Engineers using robots to dismantle practice of manual scavenging in India

Following its success, Kerala has asked GenRobotics for 50 more robots to be deployed across the state

Every year, in accordance with the Malayalam calendar, lakhs of women pour into Thiruvananthapuram to mark Attukal Pongala, a festival where freshly prepared sweet pongal (a combination of rice, jaggery and coconut) is offered to the deity of the famed Attukal Bhagavathy temple. Earlier this year, the air in Kerala’s capital was filled with the scent of make-shift brick stoves cooking up pongal.

The event is usually a monumental sight: in 2009, it was even listed in the Guinness World Records for being the largest religious gathering of women on a single day. But this past February, a section of