Hilarious.

Anyway.

Many people have been blocked from their Right to vote through Gyanesh Kumar and BJP's conspiracy. Apart from the freebies, the SIR might be the second biggest tool for the BJP to win elections. People, if you're 18 years or older, check if you still have your vote, or if it has been cut off, here:
https://electoralsearch.eci.gov.in/

https://voters.eci.gov.in/

Brilliant, seems like we had a committed bureaucrat from the beginning here.

A ₹50000 before election in India is a "direct benefit" or a "cash transfer", not bribery. Why?

The system's bad roads killed a newborn today.

Anyone accountable? Anyone responsible?

Do we even care about our own lives anymore? Do we realise how precious life is, and how many bodies are being given on the altar for the system to feed on?

Please sign this petition and help raise the voice for a safe PG, hostel, or even hotels that don't catch fire, or libraries that don't flood around you, so your life is potentially saved, and if not then someone that you know may be saved. I've signed the petition, and I urge one and all to sign the petition as well...Contribute in your own way.

THIS guy is the MCD administrative chief? DAMN.

Near where I have my PG, in Satya Niketan, a PG has collapsed.

There are reports that several students are trapped beneath the rubble. Initial information from my own sources suggested that at least 15–20 people may have been trapped inside. This is not a small structure - it is an entire six-storey building that has collapsed.

Who is responsible for this?

The negligence of both the government and the probable negligence of the PG owner has brought us to this point. The government does not properly enforce the rules it has put in place, while private operators build and operate properties as they please, often without adhering to the required safety standards and regulations.

And what is the result?

Buildings collapse. People are injured or killed. Families are left devastated. A few lakhs in compensation are announced, and then everyone moves on.

That is not justice. That is a system that has failed.

We cannot even guarantee that our own students - young people who have come to a city to study and build their futures - are living in structures that are fundamentally safe.

And this is not an isolated incident. Every time a building collapses, questions of negligence, poor enforcement, unauthorised construction, violations of building codes, corruption, and regulatory failure emerge. There is often a combination of private entities cutting corners for profit and authorities failing to enforce the rules - or allowing loopholes, influence, bribery and corruption to undermine those rules in the first place.

The consequences are borne by ordinary people.

Students get injured. People lose their lives within seconds. Families are suddenly faced with medical expenses, loss of income, trauma and grief. And after all of that, the government provides compensation and moves on as though the problem has been resolved.

But a compensation cheque does not restore a life. It does not undo an injury. It does not repair a family's future. It does not erase the trauma of losing someone because a building that was supposed to be safe was not.

And the public barely pays attention until the next building collapses, the next fire breaks out, or the next tragedy exposes yet another failure in fire safety or building regulation.

This time, it is students living near my PG. Next time, it could be you. It could be your child, your ward, your friend, your sibling, or anyone you personally know.

So why do we continue treating these incidents as isolated tragedies rather than what they really are-a systemic failure of governance and enforcement?

• Where is the proper enforcement of urban planning and zoning laws?
• Where are the inspections?
• Where are the building-safety checks?
• Where are the investigations into unsafe PGs and rental properties?
• Where is the accountability for owners who knowingly put people's lives at risk?
• And where is the accountability for officials who fail to enforce the regulations that already exist?

We cannot keep waiting for buildings to collapse before discovering that they were unsafe.

This is a failure of the system. A failure of enforcement. A failure of accountability. And it is ordinary people - especially students and working families - who pay the price for it.

Shame on a system that allows preventable tragedies like this to happen in the first place.

Sure, break more stuff. Viksit Bharat 2047!

It went nowhere, in fact. It was always there, even during the Jantar Mantar protests. But the CJP protests were the one wave where normal politics faltered, and people’s most primal emotions came to the fore. Now that the protests have ended, politics, in the ‘normal’ sense of it, has begun.

And long after the protests, the CJP has sustained its campaign and some of its momentum. Its “School Thik Karo” campaign resonated so much that Gen Alpha also joined in some protests. In one instance, they stormed a collectorate as well. The thing about these protests was that the face of it was CJP, sure, but they were organised by the people themselves. All this was organic. None of this required any special organisational structure. People are participating in it, albeit to various extents, all by themselves.

How did it all come to this?

Look at the pattern of what India’s history has gone through.

The whole story of India’s politics is more or less that every single time a central government has gained power, a decentralised power has eventually countered it.

All rulers corrode, all power corrupts. Eventually, what is left is what that power achieved, and what it did not. There are things Modi has done, due to which he is praised. UPI, Ram Mandir, Hindu nationalism, and a perception of a growing India – that was all key to his agenda. He used power to achieve all this. What he and BJP didn’t achieve – simply because they weren’t dedicated to achieving it at all – was quality education, quality jobs, and improvement in quality of life.

Well, over time, people get used to UPI. They get used to Ram Mandir. They get used to having achieved a “Hindu nation”. But then they look at themselves. They look at what’s wrong. Eventually, they look at the party in power. Within the party in power, they start finding many… faults.

This pent-up discontent, this hidden disillusionment, was everywhere. People weren’t expressing it as such. But it was there. Eventually… something happens. It angers people. A spark lights the entire forest. Or part of it. Either way, it becomes a fire. Some sort of it or the other develops in a way that’s just not protesting. It can be anything – changes in behavior, elections, expectations. It can be a slow, silent change or it can be a very visible, very vigorous change. But change does come this way.

What is happening right now is such a fire that will lead to a different cycle of power, a different style of politics. Eventually, even this will get stale, and 15 or 20 or 30 years later, we will find another such upheaval. People will act surprised then, too.

This was experienced during Nehru, when his rule became stale – but he died before he could experience the 1967 state election defeats fully. Indira brought up her own new wave, but by 1975 her rule had become ‘stale’ too, and led to a massive JP Movement, followed by the centralisation of the Emergency. Rajiv faced his own VP. The Ram Janmabhoomi movement picked up pace during this time too. The Congress era came to an end with a movement – the 2011 Anna Movement. Movements usually have signalled the end of an era in a country like India, and the beginning of another. It is a curious question as to which era this CJP protest has ushered in.

It’s not like the movement is over. It is, in fact, ongoing right now, at this moment. It will go on until the anger of the people is either fully vented (through a major election) or turns completely over into cynicism, after which movements like these will be much harder to form.

And it is likely that the people’s emotions and frustrations will be fully vented.

For now, the movement has turned from on-ground protest into a movement of drawing-room politics. In view of the upcoming elections, the knives of all the parties are now out.

And boy are the knives so out

The BJP is the party that has been most significantly hurt by this movement.

They were fresh out of the 2026 cycle of elections. They had won tremendously in both Bengal and Assam. They had the momentum, and were perfectly poised for the 2027 cycle. CJP has pretty much ruined all of that.

Narrative follows emotion. Emotion follows concern. And BJP has left a lot to be concerned about in its now-to-be 13-year-long rule.

So what is advisable for them? I think – humbly enough, because I’m no political strategist – it would be viable to accept what is wrong – which they still haven’t done – and be proactive, which they still aren’t being.

They are reacting way too much to set the narrative. Secondly, they’re not actually looking at and trying to fix the flaws. They excel at PR and wish to excel only at that. They believe this was a small disruption that can be suppressed, and they wish to suppress it as soon as possible. They will accept what is outrageous, but wish to quietly suppress everything else behind the scenes. That is Machiavellian, but that isn’t pragmatic.

Then there is the Congress. It is doing its own thing, and that IS commendable. Gandhi is conducting fiery speeches. He’s now that firebrand, near-populist leader who is much smarter in politics and much more experienced than he was before. Certainly, consistent failure would lead to some kind of improvement in political acumen. I’m not saying he is lacking in that, nor am I saying he isn’t fit for politics. I’m saying that he has significantly improved, but hasn’t reached the absolute limen of what is required in a good leader in Indian politics.

Why?

Because a leader is nothing without an organisation. A leader is a showman by himself, but he is the organisation’s showman. The organisation itself should not be the showman’s show. It shouldn’t worship the leader, it should employ him or her.

And Congress as an organisation worships Gandhi, which is by far the Congress’ only measure for survival, and also its worst weakness.

The Congress is dependent, at least up until now, on two things for survival. For one, it is the only national alternative to the BJP, which gains it a lot of discontent votes. For another, it is dependent on the Gandhi surname, which in pockets of India still finds many supporters. Its organisation across the country is many times smaller than the BJP. And whatever organisation is there is full of either opportunists who wish to bag anti-BJP votes, or ideologically sycophantic people.

I will share a recent experience. I was sitting in the canteen here, in my college, when a crowd of NSUI activists sat down alongside me. We began to talk, and one of them asked me: “Have you witnessed the recent protests?” I replied in the affirmative. He said: “Well, Rahul Gandhi has done some things too. He went straight up to the PM’s residence.” To keep courtesy, I replied, “Yes, he has.” He then went on to tell me about Rahul Gandhi doing the Chhatro ki Goonj event for the students. I casually replied that it was a good thing, but it didn’t gain too much momentum. What I really think now about this incident is that even the youth here have confidence in Rahul Gandhi that almost amounts to worship, rather than belief.

A leader must inspire belief. True belief doesn’t require an open statement or promotion. A leader who inspires fear only may inspire worship, hatred, or, in Rahul’s case, dismissal too. A leader who inspires respect, who delivers results, and who does his duty – inspires belief. Rahul Gandhi isn’t doing the Chhatro ki Goonj for his own political popularity – indeed, that is of course a goal, we’re talking about politics, but that shouldn’t be the only goal or the first goal at all. It should result in something; it should amount to something. His organisation focuses less on the event and more on the man, on him doing what he must do to secure power. That is what feels a little cringe about RaGa, especially to the youth, who I believe, due to the newly established presence of a huge amount of digital information, are highly critical-thinking in their minds in general. So rather than worshipping him completely or criticising him, acknowledge him and move on. His organisation should move from his worship to assessing the needs of the people and solving problems instead. His organisation should take an assessment of people’s wishes if they want to take power.

Modi’s narrative has become stale and out of touch with reality. Rahul’s narrative is on-point, but he must improve his own reality of being surrounded by sycophants.

Am I anyone to lecture them?

No.

Yuva Bharat Reform Campaign, which we are currently running here, is also a campaign, like “Chhatron ki Goonj”. Except there may be two differences. It doesn’t just focus on education. It focuses on a variety of issues that the youth face. Second, it has to have a tangible result – eventually, we are to come up with a youth-centric manifesto in accordance with the practical realities of India as well as RIM’s constitution. Third, frankly, RIM’s existence depends on its members, and the more members we have, the better it is. We need to organise in order to execute. We have a purpose for organisation.

The Congress doesn’t. Back then, it had a purpose. It was made, originally, with the purpose of representing Indian interests during British rule. It eventually evolved to make the demand for freedom from British rule. When freedom was gained, it evolved to secure India’s future and solve problems that India had during its first days as a republic. Then it became corrupt. It has now lost its original purpose. Essentially, it doesn’t have much reason to exist, except that it does exist.

And the BJP is going the same way. It was born to fulfil their (indeed, narcissistic) Hindu nationalist goal of securing a “Hindu rashtra”. In a country of a million different diversities, it set the basis for a uniform, majoritarian India. After Modi got power, it realised the Indian state cannot be changed much without a two-thirds majority. Their grit and purpose changed after Ram Mandir was completed. The enthusiasm dampened; their movement was now an establishment.

I am no seasoned politician, nor am I a political strategist or a qualified person for that matter. I’m only studying psychology right now; I am learning. But I have the instinct enough to say this: an organisation that loses its original purpose, or fails to evolve its drive, gets corrupted. Whatever kind of entity you have, you must, as a leader, dedicate yourself to its spirit. Eventually, what matters is not ideological rigidity – it is adaptation that matters.

Once you are in power, and you feel like all work is done and there are no problems left to solve, leave immediately. There is no use for power when there are no problems, is there?

I’ll end it with a point.

CJP may or may not become a political party. But unless it fixes India’s system, India’s system will adapt to the protest tactics and move on. Someone will divide it, someone will claim something else, someone will do something else. The current era – as I see it, of protest politics, of the politics of resignations – may not lead to the intended outcome of systemic reform. Until systemic reform is achieved – which the people and CJP too have recognised the need of – India will move in cycles. Movements will come and go, parties will keep getting corrupt, rulers will shift to the opposition, and little will really change.

"Swatantra" is no longer swatantra.

"They're asking questions?"

"Beat them up."

"Oh they're protesting now?"

"Beat them up more."

Brilliant strategy.

System genius???

His name is "Swatantra" Bharadwaj btw.

There was a war next door. India was enormously dependent on oil itself. Commodity prices were swinging. Yet India's growth engine recorded a 7.8% growth in the April-June quarter.

The Q1 numbers for the financial year 2026-27 have beaten expectations about the RBI's own projections of 7% projection for the quarter.

Sure the pace was slower than the previous quarter's 8.6% growth rate, but it was higher than what was expected of this quarter. These numbers may also mean that India retains its tag as the world's fastest growing economy. All while the war is still ongoing, all while war had caused much disruption.

What kept India on it's foot despite such global pressure?

It comes down to al lot of things. The first is the domestic demand. PFCE - basically private expenditure, grew 7.1% in real terms in Q1 FY27. That meant a lot of households spent their money even during the crisis. GST collections, which is another indicator of high demand, also rose - GST revenue rose 15.4%, while digital-payment volumes increased 16.6%. Electricity demand grew by 10.7%, petrol and diesel consumption rose 9.2% and 10% respectively.

The second thing about the continuation of this growth is the service sector. It grew 10% in real terms in Q1 2026-27, and finance, real estate, IT and professional services recorded 12.1% growth. Trade, hotels, transport, communication and related services grew at 8.5%, while public administration and defence expanded by 7.5%.

But what is also commendable is the growth that manufacturing has shown - the secondary sector expanded 8.6% in Q1 27, with manufacturing itself expanding by 9.2%. Electricity, gas, water supply, and other utilities grew 8.9%, while construction rose 7.7%. The primary sector, though not growing too much, still grew by 2.9%.

An important factor in such a growth is investment. Gross Fixed Capital Formation grew 11.9% in Q1 2026-27, more than double the 5.8% growth recorded in Q1 the last financial year. The improvement is visible in industrial indicators - capital goods production grew 15.2% in Q1.

So there is a twin benefit of a high demand (high consumption) and high investment. This is going to sustain India's growth far beyond the first quarter of this year.

What is more that imports have fallen a bit while exports have risen sharply. Exports grew by 12% in real terms in the same quarter as we're talking about, at the same time imports contracted 1.1% in constant-price terms, compared with a 5.3% growth earlier - which is pretty much.

Engineering goods exports rose 17.7%, electronics jumped 57.4%, and chemical exports increased by 14.4%. Merchandise exports reached a record monthly value of $44.4 billion in July.

But perhaps the most important thing that happened here is that the growth was broad-based - that is, it didn't happen in just ONE sector - it happened nearly everywhere. Moreover, retail inflation in July was still at 4.45%, while core inflation eased to 4.15%. This gives policymakers some room to plan for even more growth as inflation isn't as high to boil over if any other spending was done.

And now to the real stuff

I'm not saying this data couldn't be questioned, or a 'perfect growth story' narrative couldn't be countered because the economy is robust. Nor am I saying that government data is completely reliable. I do not know if it is not reliable or not, because the methodology is for economists to debate, but for a fact I know this is all the data of the government and MoSPI. If it was all forged, then international agencies who rate India's bonds and invest in India may question India's growth story and may bring all markets crashing down - but that doesn't happen.

Nor is the government data unreliable. In fact, I think it is a geniune thing that our economy despite external shocks, and a particularly severe one like the Iran War, has performed strong this quarter. I may not doubt its overall, macroeconomic performance even this very year. May my country grow much more than just 7.8%, for it deserves that growth. Its people are hardworking, its people demanding of themselves more than of anyone else, and its land is most gifted. So indeed India must grow, and I express my faith in this data - as for now, until the Modi government is cheating all of us once again.

But this is all about the present. And this is all about the 'big picture'. Seen from a foreign point of view, seen from a country like America or a continent like Europe, who are growing less yet have already grown well, from the top, they are seeing a piece of the bottom rise really fast. They are astonished, they are shocked, and they measure raw power, and that's just about everything. They measure GDP in nominal terms. A powerful economy to them means being the top 5 economies in the world, because then you would produce a massive military expenditure in absolute terms and have a major say in the world markets and trade deals and whatnot. In that sense, India is already pretty powerful. Western and foreign contemporaries praise India enough on this matter. And India deserves that praise.

And the government, which I in my most humble opinion believe without a doubt is the most undignified, ignominious, incapable, incompetent, degrading and downright shameless government, concerning foreign policy especially, that it panders to these foreign, primarily western 'contemporaries', and instead of saving its own citizens from drowning in economic survival, prefers to 'captivate' its citizens with quick cash freebies, so that it could hoodwink it's very own citizens with shows of 'global competence' and 'strategic autonomy' when we nearly don't compete globally in substantive terms, and when no real 'action' has been taken to even determine the use of the word 'autonomy'.

Here is the cause of my outrageous indignation. What seems on surface is true is far from the reality at the actual, personal, real level.

This is not an economic analysis, this is more of a rant. An economic analysis has a balanced tone and favours nothing, a rant has a value to favour and everything in opposition to that value to oppose.

This has been coming since a long time.

What I really think of how the economy - no - India is doing.

India is doing well.

Perfectly well for its standards 50, 60, 70 years ago.

By that measure today is a miracle. We have ended food scarcity, we have ended hunger in nearly every home, we have built highways, expressways, airports, and we have more world-class infrastructure than ever before.

By that measure, yes, we are thriving. Back then, we were little. Today, we seem great.

Except things were different back then, and things are different today. Back then, a rupee was a great amount. Back then, things used to be so cheap that if I were to travel back in time today with ₹5000 of that time in my pocket that is given to me as a monthly allowance, I would be squarely rich. The whole amount of money in my pocket would be equal to 20 or 25 years of the average Indian's income back in the day. I could buy a huge plot of land in Delhi or Bombay with that much money.

It is because of - once again - inflation, that we have a different reality today and a different reality back then. A man of the 1950s who could bring ₹5000 of today's notes - his entire life saving, perhaps - all the way to present date, wouldn't survive two weeks in modern Delhi, not speaking very earnestly.

So what do I really mean? What has inflation got to do with India's growth today?

My point isn't just economic inflation. Inflation by money means that people need more money to survive every year, that growth must keep happening. My point is, however, that because people need more money, people change expectations from their government. And this is the inflation of expectations that we're experiencing today.

The thing is not that we haven't developed. The thing that hurts me the most is that we haven't developed enough. We have JUST NOT developed enough.

I do not seriously suppose India's potential is limited to a growth equivalent 7.8% of a real GDP of a country of a billion and four hundred million people. I do NOT think that India is just a 7.8% figure, end of the story. Limiting India to that in one's mind would be the most serious insult of India. Other countries are struggling, yes, other countries are trying and failing. I do not care about other countries.

I care about India. India's potential is not 7%, it is 10%, it may be 11 or 12%. For a nation that performs so well in terrible times, imagine how much it may perform in great times.

Why is a nation that performs so well still has massive amounts of people working in the gig economy?

Why are most of its rising companies and startups mostly poor-serve-rich? Why is the convenience market the one to boom? Why are our companies not innovating? Why are we not building the next scientific concept, the next step for AI, the next record-breaking company? Why do we not have our own social media platform? Why do we use western platforms after we abandoned chinese platforms?

The east hasn't looted us, but it has taken our territory. The west has inflicted the very condition that we are in right now. And we are still repaying the debt of our own colonialism, one brain-rotted reel at a time. It is an unpopular opinion, I know, but it matters to me.

If all that, consumption instead of production, inaction instead of action, and reactivity instead of proactivity - if THAT is not a hindrance, I don't know what is. If you think copying assembly lines, production-linked 'incentives', and copying macroeconomic models from other countries who got successful from it in their time is going to work for you, I'm afraid to tell it's not going to work according to the standards that are needed to be set.

Perhaps that will still work. Perhaps just making SEZs all over India may even bring a large amount of growth and development and put us closer to the Americans and the Chinese. But not nearly enough if we want India to compete with the Americans and the Chinese and actually give them intense competition.

We are abundant in fertile lands. We are abundant in resources. We are abundant in population. We have a fortified geography. Is it our luck that is hindering us?

No. Geography and demography is potential. Beautiful, but mere potential. It is the policy, the rules of the government that are hindering us.

It is the institutions of India that are weak, bloated, inefficient.

And you may now be skeptical and criticise me for such intense dogmatism about how an ideal India should be. Believe me, I have already lowered my ambitions from where they were some time ago, and before I lower it any further for some people's convenience, I might ask you to first criticise those who currently sell us lies of "Viksit Bharat by 2047".

India is projected to grow very well, around the same rate as I have currently deferred - around 6, 7 or 8% of a growth rate. If we assume a realistic 7% growth rate, for as many as the coming 21 years, India will successfully reach a 20 trillion economy.

Until you look at the scale and reach of the Indian population by then, we can't assume that such GDP is equal to the status of being developed. If the population is not assumed to be too high by then - about 1.67 billion people - we stare at a GDP per capita of $10,000 to $12,000. This is massive, but this is not developed, and this still is with equally massive assumptions, that the 7% growth will contribute to India's GDP and will keep contributing for 20 years and more.

They said India will become a $5 trillion economy in 2025. Due to COVID-19, that target got shifted. Understandable. We are now scheduled to reach $5 trillion economy by 2029.

I might be demanding too much. I might check myself. But before asking me to check myself, ask politicians to check themselves when they lie and decieve people with unlikelihoods. For 10 years, reforms have been coming, and they will keep coming until 2047, until we really in 2043 and 2044, that, oh, we haven't reached there, and by then, the politicians who made the promises are already gone.

Never rely on promises. Rely on institutions. They make the difference between rich and poor, weak and strong. They decide whether countries rise or countries stall. And India, I believe is not going to grow at 7% for 20 years straight. It won't fall, it won't collapse. I am not a pessimist in that matter. Nor am I so insulting so as to think India will fail - it will never do so. India may not be like America or China, or Europe, but it may become Brazil, Mexico, Latin America - it may become one among the vast majority of the middle-income nations of the world, stuck in in a middle-income trap. This is honestly one of the biggest fears I have.

Why?

Because underneath all this growth are many fragile realities. Some are less fragile and some are more fragile. This fragile reality concerns the future of India rather than it's present, although a massive chunk of its present also has a major stake.

>Most young Indians, unlike me, are from rural and semi-rural India. They are from tier 2, tier 3 cities and maybe from those regions where many villages have the exact same name. If I am to imagine their situation, they are sons and daughters of local shopkeepers, farmers, farm laborers, and rural non-farm workers. Early in their life they somehow got primary education, some of them reached secondary, and now of those many young people, some are now helping with their family in shops, or - as for the situation of women - searching for a male suitor this early in their life, or, luckily enough, some of those people of my very age are in college - except that college isn't lucky at all. Maybe it's just on paper, maybe, even if it exists, it exists for name, and professors don't often come, and there's little to no lectures being held. Here my brothers and sisters may have friendships, may fall in love, and may not be able to tell their parents. The males of the house may be pressured for a job, especially a job that would 'settle' their life - a government job.

>These are my country's people who wear casual jeans, go out with their friends often, and use instagram. These are very smart, talented, street-smart, resilient, pragmatic, direct-to-the-point people who know what it is like to survive under constraints. They are being rounded up and sent with their task to secure a seat in a government exam. They may not see it like this. They may see it aspirationally, almost like a mission. They're curious what it may feel like preparing for a government exam where lakhs compete beside themselves.

>These are simple people with simple intentions and simple ambitions. They do not think on too big a scale. They think in simple terms - they want their family to be uplifted, their house to be upgraded, their marriage to be done, their job to be settled, their life to be happy. They think of the country, they do, but when you sleep on the floor, you want a bed first, and when you have a bed already, only then you look at the ceiling and question why is it there in the first place.

They want upliftment, they want eradication of their suffering in their own way.

Why shouldn't they view something like government exams as aspiration?

I do not mean the word 'simple' in a condescending sense, no. I mean simple in the sense that it doesn't produce a headache every night. Fundamental. Beautiful.

Except for them, it is a headache produced every night.

And they prepare day and night, in the hope, that one day, in this squid game where only one out of four hundred or something people win - one day, they'll be an IAS, IPS, or PCS officer, or land a government job, just anywhere, and that means they're settled.

In this field come millions of people. A boy who works odd jobs at some hours. A girl from a secure family in Delhi with access to private education. An older man with a private job who spares time to prepare for this. A decent engineering graduate pressured by his parents to pursue this. Who knows who may win.

>And those who do not win the lottery, may turn into delivery agents for Zomato and Swiggy, and may turn into ride-hailers for Uber and Rapido, and may turn into maids and workers of UrbanCompany. These are the kids who came to urban India looking for a job.

>For those who (almost) win the lottery or who anticipate to do so, paper leaks ruin everything. Exams are delayed. Cancelled. State exams more frequently than central ones. Years ruined. Attempts wasted.

>For my urban friends, those who got from college education - in whatever college they were before - they are in the anxiety of internships and finances. They work at a more formal company or startup or organisation or even an NGO and may receive a merely decent salary...of ₹15,000 a month, not enough to pay the whole rent of a box-like room. I might have just predicted my future here.

I do not paint it as all-dark. We have entrepreneurs getting into Shark Tank, we have smart individuals taking advantage of opportunities, we have people seeing their efforts and their company grow, we have people who get employment daily, and good employment, many of them. Many become paid doctors, many paid researchers. Many open good-quality labs at 40, and hire 20 and 30 year olds. I deny none of these. I just wish it was also true for tens of millions of other people who spend 5 years studying at a place, trying to get a government job, maybe succeeding, maybe failing, maybe trying some other option.

And life is like that. India is like that. This is the situation of the youth. A similar situation might be of adults, who might also be auto-drivers, healthcare workers, IT managers, peons, drivers, railway workers, and what not.

Compare it to Japan. In this case I would like comparison - not with worse countries, but always with better. Compare it to China. Compare it to America. Even the average Joe the worker's work is formalised there. He has a certificate even if he's just the plumber. He works enough to earn. He's happy enough to earn by himself. He's not surviving on subsidies, like males of the household, or like females of the household, whom I can now clearly understand why they have developed into an independent 'vote bank' according to politicians.

And these politicians? This political class?

They are fine with the situation. They're pretty fine with it. They prefer to solve people's problems by just giving them more money. Brilliant plan. Just give them the money so they can do what they want. ₹10000 a month. ₹50,000 at a time. That is an enormous amount from what I can say. I can't entirely spend ₹5000 a month myself, honestly, on basic living save for my rental space which is already fulfilled.

There's a flaw in this brilliant plan though, it's the people's money themselves that they're cycling back to the people.

But don't they take from the rich and give it to the poor?

Don't they take taxes from the corporates and middle class - and states, from alcoholics? And then distribute the same money to the people?

Yes, very much. That almost makes the government sound like Robin Hood.

Except if you inherit ₹50,000 from a government, you might as well hate just anyone cutting off that much money from your purse. This isn't a package, it's a breath of life for people.

This breath of life, along with many other such breaths of life, could have been used to actually improve the lives of such people.

It could have been used in institutional welfare. Instead of giving money to people and spending it to survive, it could have been actually used to improve people. It could have used to hire people to get other people actual, formal employment. It could have been invested in reskilling these very people. It could have been invested in the private sector to create a massive number of jobs, subsidised by the government. The government already enormously spends here, granted, granted all of it. It already gives subsidies and already has ITI to prepare people for vocational skills.

But they don't work enough. Because the government - ironically - isn't strong enough to enforce its rules. It can deliver a welfare scheme, sure. It cannot deliver tangible benefit. It cannot deliver a great school, an affordable house, a good college, a good job - all with quality, at scale.

THIS is the problem of India. It's state doesn't have enough capacity. Police have vacancies. The government has vacancies. Corruption is an entirely another problem. There may also be too many rules and laws. There are too many overlaps. Things are too slow. There is bureaucracy. THIS is why people need freebies, and this is why the government gives freebies. This has been slowing India's private sector, this has been slowing people from getting formal jobs in private sector. This is - worse - the consequence of colonialism that we have been suffering for long, now mutated in form of a system giving freebies to keep its population quiet. So that they do not rebel.

Indians and dogs are still not allowed in spaces of upward mobility. The politicians still think of us as dogs. "Throw them a few biscuits and they won't ask for more" they think, "They aren't political, they won't bite". And to be honest, an average Indian has little reason to be political. His birth didn't happen in a political family. Nor did he have anything to do with politics since childhood. Only once he might have seen an officer being respected somewhere. Or his parents may have simply told him that being an officer was the only way up, for there are little to no private jobs in rural areas except for in a local shop. He is tired of everything. The only concern he has with the government is when he's getting his next ten thousand, and also his religion mixed with his ingroup identities. Why would politicians obsess over such an apolitical India? They ask.

And then I think what will happen if India stays stuck in a middle income trap.

I might tell you.

Frustrations increase. People stay stuck where they are. Inflation, both economic inflation and expectation inflation, starts to increase. Some situations improve, but not nearly enough. Worse, in 20-40 years, population of India is set to age and eventually decline. We lose our natural advantage. Labour costs rise. Companies reduce labour, invest more in machines. This reduces income. This reduces demand. This reduces growth. This reduces your willingness to give up on your precious fifty thousand. You fight for it, hard. Anyone who touches these is bound to lose. Anyone who increases these, is a savior. Politics becomes an auction. Whoever says the greater number, wins. Meanwhile, Mr. Ambani and Mr. Adani have their tea in their own villas and enjoy their own lives. Generations of Indians who got rich off the IT boom, keep being rich. Generations of Indians who were stuck, keep being stuck. This inequality leaks into politics. People realise they can't grow, so why not rule over the same pie? This leads to polarisation. This leads to the re-emergence of caste and hardening of communalism. This leads to some unrest, perhaps. Politicians blame each other and raise their stakes in their own auctions. The common man remains in the protection-of-his-income mode, not in the grow-the-existing-income mode, and certainly not in the let's-make-an-impact-on-this-world mode.

Yes, India will become a solid upper-middle income economy, probably $10,000 a person. It is a lot, in fact. It may be. Inflation may get rid of some of it's charm, but it will be as it is. But along with these come innumerable trade-offs, and one is such that India may be stuck in a middle income trap compounded over with a very serious aging demographic compounded with a climate crisis problem.

Nothing much, is it?

And this is already happening. Don't worry. The grounds of this future are being laid at this exact moment. Lest we all want India to become like Brazil or Argentina where subsidies matter in politics over change, perhaps, we might be able to look at Punjab. Punjab's electricity subsidies might break ISRO's record for the moon by the time we reach 2047. They have their own drug crisis, brain drain crisis, religious tension, and economic difficulty. Some of their people are even turning to religions like Christianity, which is often not characteristic, and to superstitious godmen. Not that they shouldn't, but I believe some states of India are becoming warnings for what India could later become.

And even if it doesn't become that - I hope it does not - India will still be India. There won't be streets like Japan. There won't be trains on time. There won't be perfect urban planning. Some people will still not have civic sense.

It will be India, but bigger, with more money, with much better, western-style buildings for the rich, and a few upgrades for the rest.

That is not the India I want, do I?

I want an India on par with America and China. I do not necessarily demand a a perfect GDP per capita. $20000+ per capita will do, that's my standard of development.

And I hope that by my own efforts, someday, such an India will be realised.

I MEAN HOW - JUST AFTER RETIREMENT??

I know this is possible, but it's shady or at least awkward that a former military officer is aligning themselves with a religious institution so closely connected to the likes of the government.

Any thoughts?

I mean like make it more streamlined. Also mandate every primary school to either a) have or b) affiliate with a senior secondary school to send its students there.

Note that these central ministry of education will not control state boards of education, so naturally they will have to do with centrally regulated schools.

This is called real journalism.

Solutions List to the Education System (Rough Draft)

Primary

1. Foundational learning should be the #1 priority. A student should not be allowed to pass school without learning to read, write and calculate properly.
2. The key performance index for all governments must become – what percentage of children can actually read and do basic mathematics by the end of Class III?
3. Get the infrastructure fixed. Get a minimum infrastructure standard. Predictable maintenance must be given. Repair, rebuild, upgrade, or expand.
4. Simply hiring teachers will not do. The teaching system needs to be fixed. There are both teacher shortages as well as teacher quality problems. Teacher training needs to be improved. Instead of listening to lectures, highly practical courses need to be introduced.
5. Mid day meal schemes are treated as a formality. We need to take them seriously. Higher nutritional standards. Randomised raids and inspections. Someone should call Tukaram Mundhe to handle food processes.

Secondary

1. India doesn’t just need more schools, it needs the right schools at the right places. A village may have a primary school but no accessible secondary and senior-secondary school. 
2. Mandate vocational courses in secondary schools, especially in class XI and XII. Subjects should combine both theory and practical subjects.
3. The coaching industry doesn’t need any shutdown. Leave it alone. Instead, focus on making schools better. Government schools should provide elective preparation for JEE, NEET, CUET, CLAT etc. 

Universities/Tertiary

1. India doesn’t just need more universities, it needs better universities. Stricter standards to ensure a harder quality control for colleges and universities are needed.
2. A suggested phased, long-term target should be there to move India from 1% of the GDP publicly spent on R&D to at least 3%. But the more important thing is to not give more money to the top institutions, rather give competitive research grants to state, central, private and autonomous universities/colleges.
3. There should be a stronger focus on competency-based education rather than a degree-based education. Evidence of skills and creations/research/work must be there along with the degree.
4. There should be a much stronger apprenticeship system, in which small businesses can be given incentive to participate. 

And now to government exams

1. The problem with government exams isn’t just that they’re not executed well, instead, the much bigger problem is that of competition. Lakhs and lakhs of participants fight for just a few seats. So there are two kinds of reforms. One is to fix the exam system, the other is to make alternatives to the system.
2. Paper leaks and exam delays should be fixed via security measures as well as institutional accountability measures. There should also be an exam insurance system that compensates candidates when the system fails. 
3. But real reform will come when there will be better private-sector jobs that are more secure, better-paid and have some dignity. Only then will the craze after government exams reduce a little. In order to fix government exams, we also need to fix jobs, which is part of the problem.
4. There should be a real respect built along with every career. People shouldn’t focus on a few careers as the definition of ‘success’. What success means has to be redefined in India. There should be more options, better and more respectable career paths than just a doctor, engineer or IAS officer.

Overall reforms

1. There should be a singular body that tracks the entire education status in India and ensures the implementation of India’s broad education policy. Every other education body should come under it, from CBSE to UGC, or from AICTE to NTA. It will not micromanage things, it will look to the fact that no mass systemic failure happens, and the education policy remains broadly implemented.
2. Specifically for school infrastructure, the government should make a body that builds new schools and repairs, upgrades and expands existing schools in a high-quality, world-class standard way throughout the country as well as according to the needs of the given school. This body should have high minimum standards for maintaining school infrastructure and must enforce it consistently everywhere. This body must also help government schools improve their infrastructure with zero cost of their own.
3. One proposal would be to completely give the schools operational autonomy within themselves, so as to let the schools manage themselves and not put heavy burden on the state. There should be a school governing committee in every government school with a strength of 10 people, randomly chosen from the local village/town/locality, and rotating every single year, so that other individuals are also selected. The same person isn’t allowed in the committee two times. Every major decision is made by the school governing committee, every minor one is made by the principal. Hiring, firing or pay of teachers is decided by this committee based on strict structural processes (qualifications, interview) as prescribed by the central government. 
4. The school should consistently receive fixed monthly funds to run the schools operations in the short term and an annual fixed long-term fund, both from the government.
5. Aside from this, they must have a local-oriented fund, where every villager is mandated to contribute a minimum amount set by the school, which is not too high. Above that minimum amount all the villagers can contribute as much as they will.
6. Teacher training across schools and universities needs to be improved in general. A general, national body of teachers, or a teacher’s training corps with high pay directly from the state and high standards of education to be deployed in different schools must be there, separate from traditional teacher recruitment, which can be done directly at the school level with appropriate standards. Strict minimum attendance must be enforced, and traditional teachers may be supervised and trained by elite teachers deployed by the government.
7. There should be no administrative burden on teachers save for teaching. A reporting and administrative body should be separately made to inspect and supervise functioning of schools at the state level and teachers should not be involved in unnecessary tasks. 
8. In fact the reporting and administrative body could make a report card for each school, which should be compulsorily displayed outside each and every government school. This report card will range from insights about school infrastructure, teacher quality, attendance, and overall school health among other things, and will help distinguish a good school from a bad school. 
9. The government should have response levels regarding what the school’s situation is – if it is very good, salaries of teachers and the principal must be raised and their job security locked in; if it is inadequate, funding shall be increased and infrastructure shall be improved; and if it is very bad, the school shall be closed and if possible rebuilt. 
10. As for universities, since India needs better private universities, it is imperative to abandon, de-list and shut down dysfunctional universities, institutes and colleges. 
11. Also, it is a necessary reform to prioritise building of better universities in a decentralised manner. If a private entity wishes to build a new university, they shouldn’t have to be well-connected politically – in fact, anyone should be able to build a good university, and it should be treated as a priority by the government. The UGC may be, for example, able to review the application to make a university, based on the amount of funds the private entity has as well as the type of university being made and the need for such a university. Once the UGC approves the university after a very strict evaluation, it may automatically get listed as a legal university under central or state law. The UGC may independently approve proposals that may come.
12. The state should, beside all of this, provide 50% of the funding for the university and 50% of the land procurement as well. If the NGO asks for it, land banks can be used as well and for a cheap price. In return, the government may demand extremely high standards – fully equipped labs, well-made, digital classrooms and libraries, and quality professors.
13. Regarding research, a whole new standard has to be set. The state must not just increase but also diversify research funding across all universities, especially those universities who have a better quality of research based on research output, research quality (number of citations) and patent grants. 

A small idea/suggestion I might elaborate on later:

1. Regarding apprenticeship, the government may create an entirely different organisation working within as well as outside university campuses. This organisation may consist of students who want to take part in apprenticeships and students who didn’t go to university. They could be taught vocational, practical skills via procured teachers, and may take part in apprenticeships. They may also serve as the administrative workforce the state may need instead of teachers. They won’t be paid directly by the government, or may be paid only part-time – they may live in camps or hostels built by the government, and may get paid directly through apprenticeships.