It is only 3am in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, but, for hundreds of people at a massive kitchen, work has already begun. In the next few hours, 100-thousand hot and healthy school lunches will be prepared.
In the pre-dawn, giant cauldrons of lentil soup are mixed with vegetables and spices to make sambar. Hundreds of kilograms of rice are washed and cooked.
The Akshaya Patra organisation has kitchens like this dotted across 10 Indian states.
Every school day, with government and philanthropic support, it feeds a total of one-and-a-half million children.
Madhu Pandit Dasa is chairman of Akshaya Patra, He is also the temple president of ISKCON Bangalore - the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. The founders of the program have not relied on just divine intervention to create the world's largest midday-meal program, though.
They have also harnessed the talent of some of the brightest minds from India's technology companies to think about the supply chain, innovation and logistics.And right from the start, they say, they thought about scale -- how to use the latest technology to feed as many kids as possible.
Akshaya Patra's chief projects officer, R. Madan, says that is where compassion meets corporate efficiency.
By 8am, food is loaded into heat-insulated trucks to make the journey to schools in and around Bangalore. Time management at Akshaya Patra is a key issue, one that has been a subject of study at Harvard University.
Time management at Akshaya Patra is a key issue, one that has been a subject of study at Harvard University.
As the trucks rumble out, a sample from every batch of food that has been produced is sent to a laboratory for testing to ensure it is safe.
In 2013, more than 20 schoolchildren died of food poisoning in the state of Bihar after eating lunch.
Askshaya Patra says it is determined the children it serves will never consume contaminated food.
It is lunchtime at the Government Model School in Yeswanthpur, Bangalore. Teachers here say the Akshaya Patra program has enticed children to school, helped undernourished children put on weight and ensured students can concentrate on their studies. It has also kept them from dropping out of school.
Akshaya Patra means an inexhaustible bowl of food. The children are allowed as many servings as they like as long as they finish what is on their plate.
The man who founded Akshaya Patra, Madhu Pandit Dasa, has just been awarded one of India's highest civilian honours for his work. He says he is just happy.
Despite India's growing economic clout, millions of children remain undernourished.
In 2001, the Supreme Court issued a directive stating all primary students at government and government-assisted schools would receive a cooked midday meal.
Approximately 120 million children are eligible. The quality of the meals, delivered by a range of non-government organisations, varies widely.
But Akshaya Patra says it wants to expand and share its knowledge across the country.
By 2020, it aims to be feeding 5 million children a day.
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