New Delhi, Oct. 15 -- Hina Agarwal, a Gurgaon-based banking professional, is delighted that her child, a grade three student, wraps up his research work for school assignments almost independently and spends weekends coding for Minecraft-instead of repeat viewing of the kids catalogue on Netflix.

"It's not just another activity kit or a passive screen. it's where he learns to make things, not just watch them," she elucidates. The family recently bought an HP All-in-One desktop to complement (or replace, as they hope) the iPad that they had given to their kid a couple of years ago for online classes and his first brush with computing.

A few weeks ago, my seven-year-old negotiated extra screen time on his new computer-not to play Minecraf...