More than 100,000 English-speaking children in India's Silicon Valley Bangalore have been asked by the Kumaraswamy government to switch to schools offering lessons exclusively in Kannada.

The ban on English has been enforced in 2,100 private elementary schools across the state. And 1,440 such schools are located in Bangalore.

The state government argues that these schools have been violating the language policy, which is the core to the state's Kannada ethos.

But parents and school managements say the Kumaraswamy government is curtaining the right to freedom of education in Karnataka in the name of language.