Every September 15th, India remembers Sir M. Visvesvaraya — an engineer whose work still holds up a century later. What made him worth remembering wasn’t a certificate on a wall. It was the ability to look at a genuine, unsolved problem and actually fix it. That’s still the real measure of an engineer, and it’s a standard worth holding on to.
Last week, Anthropic released AI that drafts legal contracts, analyzes balance sheets, and writes production code. Cost? ₹16,000/month. That’s what companies paid ₹50,000/month employees to do.
What this means if you’re graduating in 2026:
Campus placements are already down 30-40% at top colleges. Companies aren’t hiring fewer people because they’re struggling—they’re hiring fewer because AI replaced the work.
But here’s what most students miss: AI didn’t eliminate jobs. It eliminated tasks. The companies still need people—just different skills.