When Kabir S, 10, wrote a letter to the Chief Justice of India, he didn’t expect anything to come of it, given his experience with the prime minister. When he was in Std II, he had written to PM Narendra Modi urging him to take steps to save the environment. This time, though, Kabir, now in Std V, was pleasantly surprised when the CJI not only took note but acted on his letter. The Supreme Court has turned his appeal to reopen schools into a PIL. 

On Wednesday morning, his mother, Dr Rama Shyam, an ethnographer with a public health organisa-tion, received an SMS from the Supreme Court, informing that Kabir’s communication had been given the status of a PIL.