India is a country of paradoxes. We are in the seventieth year of independence yet we are still fighting for our basic rights and needs. India is vastly an agricultural country but almost twenty five percent of its population yet do not have access to good nutritious quality of food. We have the world class engineering and management colleges to boast of yet an alarming majority of youths today don’t have sustainable long term jobs. Like some immature brats fight for the food choices people make and completely ignore the fact that majority of its women don’t have a choice to select their life partner. While the kith and kin of the political families are getting easy bail and acquittal from some heinous crimes, some innocent citizens have to face the brunt of delayed justice and corrupted judiciary. This and many more has made India a country full of young but unhappy people who need to keep on struggling just to survive where they should be working for excellence and quality of life. Of course the complicated political situation full of treachery, greed and corruption does not let the youth flourish happily.
From across the country, there are three demands which can be heard consistently since many years which would need a solution for this country to progress.
Education
There has always been a major shortcoming in the entire education system of India. In spite of having the IITs, IIMs and various other renowned education institutes with world standards, majority of Indian youths are not able to get admission to these coveted schools. With the number of eligible students to the college ratio decreasing every year, it is getting extremely tough to get into good graduate schools leading to stress, depression and loss of ambition in the youths. The situation of primary education is even worse where almost 50% of Indian children do not go to school. Lack of NAC and NBA standards to many colleges, lack of teachers and exorbitant fees leads to lower rate and quality of education. India is the software hub of the world having some of the most intelligent people who have achieved success in spite of the poor education. So, its imperative the government does something drastic which will have a sustaining and long term advantage in the field of education. Only opening vast number of educational institutes will not solve the problem. But we need an operation on a huge scale covering the grassroots.
Jobs
There is no use of education if we don’t have jobs. Every month, a million Indians become age-eligible to join the workforce, but the growth in jobs has not kept pace with the rising number of aspirants. The result: unemployment has been on the rise, despite India supposedly being one of the brighter spots in a slowing global economy. Many wonder why an economy supposedly growing at a rate of over 7 per cent is not creating enough jobs. Economists say this is because more work is now being done with fewer employees. In such a situation, employment creation will be one of our greatest challenges for the next decade. And this cannot be achieved with only changes in private sector. Both, the government and the huge business houses need to think of an attitudinal change which will create a favorable situation for creating ample employment and also lead to profitable ventures. Of course, Indian youths need to be flexible to adapt to the changing situations and adapt to the new technology and be open to different ways of working to get employment and sustenance in case of global slowdowns and recessions.
Justice
India, the land of paradoxes has had a very love hate relationship with justice. Where a young girl gets raped only for roaming late evening with her male friend and a young boy gets arrested and beaten up for publicly criticizing the government and its policies. In recent years, the supreme court of India has given some path breaking decisions related to social, economic and cultural conflicts. Yet in some cases justice seems to be in the clutches of the rich and the famous when a Bollywood superstar is acquitted of all his charges in spite of solid evidences. Delay in getting justice is also one of the significant factors resulting in loss of trust and hope. Martin Luther king said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere. Going by this, India still needs to go a long way in creating an ideal situation where the youths will get an easy and fast access to justice. The current government, here as well, needs massive drive to curb corruption and speed up the process of justice to achieve significant results.
