New Delhi, June 21 -- Over the past few weeks, I've been on the road. Parbhani, Pune, Chennai, Jaipur. In small-town labs and factory floors, I saw jobs that still exist, but don't look like they used to

In Parbhani I met Dr. Chaitanya, who runs a 24-hour diagnostics lab above a heart clinic. He told me he's failed to detect cancer before-not out of neglect, but because he was worn out. Now, when something doesn't feel right, he runs the slide through a machine. It doesn't get distracted. It doesn't get tired. It caught leukaemia in a boy whose report looked normal at first glance.

In Jaipur I spent time inside Wipro's factories. I met Chandni-just out of college, far from home-running a CNC machine built for someone twice her size. The...