- The AI Impact Summit 2026 and the Robodog Controversy
- Beyond a PR Embarrassment: A Structural Malaise
The Galgotias robodog controversy at AI Impact Summit 2026 exposes deeper flaws in India’s higher education system—research ethics, innovation claims, and academic integrity.
The Galgotias fiasco and India's higher education system
By Justice Markandey Katju
At the recent AI Impact Summit 2026 in Delhi, the Galgotias University ( a private University in Greater Noida) displayed a robodog, claiming that it was created by it, though it was later revealed to be made by a Chinese company Unitree.
This fiasco has gone viral on the social media.
If this incident had been a one off faux pas, one could have overlooked it. But in fact it discloses a deeper, basic malaise in India's whole higher educational system.
The Purpose of Higher Education in a Developing Society
One of the main purposes of India's higher educational institutions ( Universities, engineering colleges, etc ) should be to find out how India can solve its massive and widespread problems of poverty, unemployment, child malnutrition ( every second child in India is malnourished, according to Global Hunger Index ), almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for the masses, etc.
Solving these problems requires creative and critical thinking, which our higher educational institutions should be fostering. But the teachers in these institutions do not do that. They only pass on their bookish, superficial knowledge to their students, and regard their work just as a job to feed themselves and their families, while drawing hefty salaries and perks, which come from the taxpayers' hard-earned income. What have they given in return to the people? Almost nothing. And their students are only interested in getting cushy jobs after graduating, e.g. in the IAS, PCS, a multi-national corporation, etc or going and settling abroad
The Intellectual Question: Where Are the Public Thinkers?
Intellectuals are the eyes of society, and without genuine intellectuals, society is blind. One may recollect the works of Voltaire and Rousseau, which led to the great French Revolution of 1789, which destroyed feudalism in France, or the works of Lenin, which led to the Russian Revolution of 1917, which created a new society in Russia.
But in India our so called 'intellectuals' who are mostly products of our higher educational institutions, are really pseudo intellectuals, having only shallow bookish language which they got in their Universities and Colleges, and are arrogant, pompous and snooty braggarts displaying their superficial 'knowledge', ( their 'research' mostly being plagiarism, like the robodog shown by Galgotias at the AI Impact Summit ) ), but strutting around like peacocks showing their feathers to a gullible public. They are themselves blind, so how can the blind lead the blind ?
From Innovation Theatre to Intellectual Integrity
I submit that unless we change the backward mindsets of most or our people ( full of casteism and communalism ), we can never solve our huge socio-economic problems ( mentioned above ). And to do tha,t we must have genuine intellectuals in India, who can give correct guidance to the people and show them the way forward, not the supercilious, pretentious, highfalutin, and snooty lot we have at present.
(Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, and former Chairman of the Press Council of India. The views expressed are his own.)
