Looking back, there is little reason for the Indian government to be proud of this episode. People’s trust was met with disruption whose full costs remain unreckoned and whose promised benefits have never received a convincing consolidated accounting. Indians rebuilt their livelihoods and moved on. Their resilience cannot absolve the government…
Youth restlessness must be understood against this background. Families have invested in education, often through considerable sacrifice. Qualifications raise expectations of economic mobility. When stable employment remains elusive, disappointment is understandable.
The Commission's authority rests ultimately on public confidence. Like Caesar's wife, the Election Commission must be above suspicion. It should welcome scrutiny and answer legitimate questions, especially when millions of voting rights are involved.
Why not begin by reopening serious discussions with Chinese conglomerate BYD about an Indian factory? BYD is now one of the world’s dominant EV manufacturers. Its Indian ambitions were caught in the post-Galwan investment freeze. Invite it back to the table—but on Indian terms
India's digital infrastructure can certainly deliver free coaching to millions. But an even greater achievement would be to build an education and employment system in which families no longer feel compelled to buy coaching in the first place. Making bottled water cheaper is useful. Making the water from taps trustworthy is the real solution…
Between 2004 and 2023, India produced roughly five million graduates every year, but graduate employment increased by only around 2.8 million annually. Even fewer obtained salaried employment. Millions are either unemployed or working below their qualifications or in the waiting room for the elusive government job.
The deeper problem is India’s graduate unemployment crisis. Millions of young graduates are not working, earning or acquiring experience, but preparing for competitive exams. The government job has become a lottery ticket; the coaching class has become a waiting room
The current crisis in West Asia offers us a window. In a world where oil routes can be disrupted overnight by wars India did not start, energy independence becomes a sovereign necessity. Every gigawatt of solar power installed is one step away from the Strait of Hormuz. Every electric vehicle on the road is a barrel of oil India does not have…
A democracy that is cutting down forests for votes risks mortgaging its ecological future for an electoral present. Welfare is essential; appeasement is corrosive. The difference lies in fiscal discipline, transparency and respect for citizens, who are not beneficiaries, but are owners of the republic. If we do not draw that line now, next year…
A nation aspiring to be “Viksit Bharat” by 2047 should be expanding the scope of social citizenship and social security, not shrinking it. Reforming MNREGA was both necessary and desirable. Replacing a justiciable right with a discretionary scheme is neither reform nor progress. It is a constitutional, economic and moral step backward.
