1. Indian Youth emerging power

• India a favorable demographic profile. Youth as defined by UNESCO is “best understood as period of transition from dependence on childhood to adulthood’s independence and awareness of our independence as members of community. Youth is a more fluid category than a fixed age group”

• Due to their vibrant and dynamic approach ‘India’ comes across as young nation with nearly 65% of its population falling under the rough age of 35

• According to Annual Report 2016-17,”The national Youth Policy, 2014 reiterates the commitment of the entire nation to all around development of youth of India so that they can realize their full potential and contribute productively to nation building process”

 

1.1. The objectives of National Youth Policy 2014:

• Creating a productive workforce that can make a sustainable contribution to India’s economic development the priority area for this are

• Education

• Entrepreneurship

• Employment and skill development

• Develop a strong, healthy generation equipped to take on future generations. To be operated through

• Health- Healthy lifestyle

• Sports

• Instill social values and promote community service to build rational ownership- operative tools are

• Promotion of social values

• Community engagements

• Facilitate participation and civic at all centres of governance to be operated through

• Participation in politics and governance

• Youth engagement

• Support youth at risk and create equitable opportunities for all disadvantaged and marginalized youth. The priority areas being inclusion and social justice

• As per Ministry Annual report 2016-17, for successful working of NYP 2014, certain interventions can be included:

• Building system capacity and quality education

• Targeting youth outreach and awareness- building link across systems and stakeholders in employment and skill development

• Meeting customized programmes in entrepreneurship

• Improving service delivery in health sector

 

1.2. Some of important initiatives of government:

• Skill up graduation training program (SUTP): it aims to develop vocational training skill with help of trained masters to help of trained masters to generate extra income and self confidence

• Promotion of Folk art, culture and Yuva Kriti: to promote Indian culture

• Life skill Training for adolescents:

• Tribal Youth Exchange programme (TYEP): aim to pick up youth from LWE areas

• North East youth exchange programme

• Mahatma Gandhi Yuva Swachta Abhiyaan and Shramdaan Karyakram to alert and engage the youth in contributing to the cleanliness drive and water conservation.

 

1.3. Youth a change agent:

• There is a clear divide between peninsular India comprising of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and hinterland states like MP, Rajasthan, UP, Bihar

• Demographically there are two India’s with policy implications for policy viz as soon to begin ageing India

 

Youth and Labour market:

• The decline has been very sharp for rural females which could be attributed to the absence of job opportunities in the rural areas due to social/religious customs

• The urban females (15-29) experienced the highest unemployment 15.6 which may be due to family support

• The skill mismatch makes youth unemployable

• There is mismatch between educational qualification and potential to get absorbed in appropriate jobs or skill has become obsolete due to technical improvement

• Young job seekers make about 49% of total unemployed

• The challenge is to address the

• problem of working poor

• insecurity at work place

• lack of market linked skills

• information asymmetry

• poor perception about skill development

• what emanates from above is

• match supply to current demand for skills

• help workers and enterprises adjust to change

• building and sustaining competences for future labor market needs

• The sector skill councils, industry led bodies are facilitating linkages on training with demand through development of course curriculum helping assessment certification

 

Leveraging Youth power:

Mapping Youth power

• Mobilization key for scaling: The poor mobilization due to lack of information about vocational courses and labor market outcomes, affordability of vocational courses, unwillingness to migrate

• Addressing Diversity: women constitute about 48% of total population but participation is 22%.

 

2. Making nation of job creators:

• India needs 10 million jobs a year and global data shows that it is start-ups, not large enterprises that create the net new jobs in any country.Start-ups are essentially of two kinds. One that starts something ground up, something that no one has thought about and is often ground breaking. Second ones are who does not want to reinvent the wheel.

 

2.1. Addressing Fund Challenges:

• a) Most challenging is patent and IPR

• b) According to recent survey 94% of start ups fail during first year of operation due to lack of funds

• c) Pradhan Mantri micro Units Development and Refinance Limited (MUDRA)- started with an initial corpus of 20000 crore rupees to extend benefits to around 10 lakh MSMEs.

• d) Bootstrapping or self funding is an effective way of start-up financing as first time entrepreneurs have a trouble in getting funds without showing any business progress.

• e) Crowd Funding is like taking a loan, pre order, contribution or investments from more than one person at the same time.

• f) Angel Investors are individuals with surplus cash and keen interest to invest in upcoming start-ups.

• g) Venture capitalists are professionally manages funds who invest in companies that have a huge potential.

• h) Microfinance Institutions and the NBFCs also provide funds to these young start-ups.

 

2.2. Government Initiatives:

• Start up action plan has 19 point agenda:

• a) self certification to reduce the regulatory liabilities including payment of gratuity, water and air pollution acts.

• b) All India Hub will be created as a single point contact for start-up foundations in India, which will help the entrepreneurs to exchange knowledge and financial aid.

• c) A fast track system for patent examination at lower costs

• d) A corpus fund of about 10,000 crore rupees have be visualised to support the upcoming start-ups in India.

• e) National Credit Guarantee Trust Company is being conceptualised with a budget of 500 crore per year to support the flow of funds to the start-ups.

• f) Capital gains tax is exempted for the primary level investment in these start-ups.

• g) Start-ups would not pay income tax for the three years.

• h) Innovation related study plans for students in over 5 lakh schools to promote the budding entrepreneurs.

• i) Atal Innovation mission will be launched to boost innovation and encourage talented youths.

• j) public Private Partnership model is being considered for new incubators and innovation centres as national institutes.

• k)The government plan to setup new research parks with an investment of 100 crores each.

• l) A panel of facilitators will provide legal support and assistance in submitting patent applications and other official documents

• m) A rebate of about 80 percent of the total value will be provided to the entrepreneurs on filing patent applications.

• n) Norms of Public procurement and rules of trading have been simplified for the start-ups

• o) Easy exit if startup fails

 

3. Indian Youth And: Education

• The second largest populous nation of the world, India had a staggering 600 million people i.e., more than 50 percent of its population below the age of 25, till the latest count, and is a matter of another couple of years the nation will be the youngest nation in the world.

• The key to youth empowerment is to make him educated and employable. The vision of " Transforming India" can only be fulfilled by the motto of Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) - "Education for All, Quality Education

 

Challenges:

• a) India being a secular and democratic country fragmented on various issues of gender, topography, age etc., which hinders the equal access of available education resources to its citizens.

• b) Lack of Quality and motivated teachers

• c) Faculty crunch

• d) Paucity of funds especially in state institutions

• e) Least prioritised budgeting from nation's GDP (only 3.3%) make the biggest education system, hollow vessels sound more.

• f) Out dated and rigid curriculum

• g) Shelled approach - designed curricula make youth of today literate but not educated with holistic development.

• h) Lack of participation of employ and employer - designing curriculum has been centuries

 

3.1. Government Initiatives:

• a) Expansion of education for youth is undertaken by the government at every level by establishing new institutions like IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, Central universities etc.

• b) GIAN aimed at tapping the pool of scientists and entrepreneurs internationally to encourage their engagement with institutions of higher education to augment existing academic resources

• c) IMPRINT India scheme is launched with an aim to direct research in the premier institutions into areas of social relevance

• d) Uchchtar Axvishkar Yojana was launched to promote industry specific need based research so as to keep up competitiveness of Indian industry in the global market.

• e) NIRF for ranking higher education institutions annually based on an objective and verifiable criteria for promoting quality.

• f) Establishment of Higher education Financing Agency for creating capital assets in order to give a big push for building up robust higher education institutions.

• g) Swayam Prabha - a project for telecasting high quality educational programmes through 32 DTH channels on 24 x 7 basis.

• h) Swayam - an indigenous IT platform for hosting the massive online open courses for providing best quality education covering all subjects and courses to the students even in the remotest corner of the country.

• i) RUSA - though education is state's responsibility but to promote the quality standards of state's education system,

• j) Choice based credit system - an excellent approach to redesign curriculum

• 3.1.1.Needs and Opportunities:

• a) Formal education system cannot stand up to the expectations of the rising middle class aspirations.

• b) An innovative MOOC like SWAYAM is necessary to cater the needs of emerging population.

• c) Transformation of semi skilled labour to skilled labour and shift from informal to organised sectors of dignified employment are possible only through cost effective entrepreneurship education.

• d) There is a wide felt need amongst current generation of youngsters especially women to educate and train themselves for better employment opportunities.

• e) Large number of our graduates lack basic skills and are unemployable.

• f) Open and distance education in Entrepreneurship could groom these individuals into innovative and successful entrepreneurs.

• g) Time and space availability between the students and teachers can be asynchronous.

• h) Distance education platforms especially for courses like Entrepreneurship and Management provides additional skills to the existing working population

• i) With higher education in private hands joining full time courses for some students is a costly affair.

 

Way Forward:

• a) The goal of education in countries like India is to make the people employable.

• b) Some minimum amount of employment generation or self Entrepreneurship should be promoted to make the Distance learning a successful one.

• c) Striking a fine balance between the real and virtual education is essential.

• d) Gaining credibility amongst the potential employers and authenticity among the students are necessary since open and distant education has inherent challenges to face.

• e) Institutes offering entrepreneurial training though ODL must ensure quality on par with the conventional courses through rich and reliable course content, fair assessment, effective communication and execution of course objectives and strong student support services.

• f) Sustainability and Quality in entrepreneurial training

 

4. Global Presence Of Indian Youth

4.1. Flag Bearers of Indian Culture

Youth and Diaspora:

• Mahatma Gandhi is believed to be the first "Pravasi Bharathiya" of India who endowed the world with something that could be cherished throughout the human civilisation.

• India has a strong 25 million Diaspora spread throughout the world.

• Opening of quality institutes like IITs in India gave an impetus to young talented technical graduates to grab opportunities in Western countries.

• Unparalleled talent and fortitude of Indian Engineers have won them accolades in the United States.

• The mass emigration of unskilled labours started to middle east countries after the oil boom

 

Initiatives of Government:

• a) Pravasi Bharathiya Divas: An annual meeting held every year to celebrate the achievements of Indian Diaspora and felicitate them for their efforts for establishing link between India and other countries for residence.

• b) The merger of PIO and OCI cards has been done with the intention to facilitate hassle free entry of persons of Indian origin into India

• c)Youth  Pravasi Bharathiya Divas was launched to promote the contributions of younger generations

• d) Visiting Adjunct Joint Research Facility (VAJRA) is envisioned to contribute to the nation's growth in science and technology.

• e) Know India Program is to help familiarise Indian Diaspora youth in the age group 18 - 26 years with Indian land and their ancestors and share their views, expectations and experiences and to bond closely with contemporary India.

 

5. Gst- the game changer:

Need for GST

• a) The Central government levies tax on manufacturing, provisioning of services, interstate sale of goods etc., it is clearly visible that multiplicity of taxes which are being levied on the same supply chain.

• b) There is cascading of taxes, as taxes levied by the Central government are not available as setoff against the taxes being levied by the state governments. Creation of tariff and non tariff barriers such as Octroi, entry tax, Check posts etc created a hindrance to the hassle free movement of goods between states.

• c) The large number of taxes creates high compliance costs for the tax payers in the form of number of payments, returns etc

 

Advantages of GST:

• a) Will help to create a unified common national market for India, giving a boost to foreign investment and Make in India initiative.

• b) Will mitigate cascading of taxes as Input Tax Credit will be available across goods and services at every stage of supply.

• c)Harmonization of laws, procedures and rates of tax between centre and states and across states

• d) Improved environment for compliance as all returns are to be filed online, input credits to be verified online, encouraging more paper trail of transactions at each level of supply chain.

• e) Common procedures for registration of taxpayers, refund of taxes, uniform format of tax return, common tax base, common classification of goods and services will lend greater certainty to the taxation system.

• f)Greater usage of IT will reduce human interface between the tax payer and the tax administration, which will go long way in reducing corruption.

• g) It will boost export and manufacturing activity, generate more employment and thus increases GDP with gainful employment leading to substantive economic growth.

• h) It will help in poverty eradication by generating more employment and more financial resources.

• i) Reduction in compliance costs - No multiple records keeping for a variety of taxes - so lesser investment of resources and man power in maintaining records.

• j) More effective neutralisation of taxes especially for exports thereby making our products more competitive in the international market which will give boost to the Indian economy.

• k) Average tax burden on supply of goods or services is expected to come down which would lead to more consumption, which in turn means more production thereby helping in the growth of industries manufacturing in India.

• l) Final price of goods is expected to be transparent due to seamless flow of input tax credit between the manufacturer, retailer and service supplier.

• m) Relatively large segment of small retailers will be either exempted from tax or will suffer very low tax rates under a compounding scheme - purchases from such entities will cost less to the consumers.

• n) GST being a destination based tax will favour the consuming states.

• o) Improved compliance level of the tax payers will contribute greatly in improving the revenue collection in the states.

• p) Improves the overall investment climate in the country which will naturally benefit the development of the states.

 

5.1. Government Initiatives

• Expansion of education for youth

• It is undertaken by the government at every level by establishing new institutions like IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, Central universities etc.

• GIAN aimed at tapping the pool of scientists and entrepreneurs internationally to encourage their engagement with institutions of higher education to augment existing academic resources.

• IMPRINT India scheme is launched with an aim to direct research in the premier institutions into areas of social relevance.

• RUSA – Its though education is state's responsibility but to promote the quality standards of state's education system, federal funding under RUSA is given to the states to promote performance based education. It works on the carrot and stick policy.

• Choice based credit system – Its an excellent approach to redesign curriculum which is going to be student centric, giving them ample opportunity for inter disciplinary academics with multi directional movement within state, nation and world's education system.

• NIRF : Its for ranking higher education institutions annually based on an objective and verifiable criteria for promoting quality. Establishment of Higher education Financing Agency for creating capital assets in order to give a big push for building up robust higher education institutions.

• NAD: its for maintaining academic awards in digital depository enabling online access and retrieval, eliminate fraudulent practices such as forging of certificates and mark sheets and facilitate validation. Swayam Prabha - a project for telecasting high quality educational programmes through 32 DTH channels on 24 x 7 basis.

• Swayam :Its an indigenous IT platform for hosting the massive online open courses for providing best quality education covering all subjects and courses to the students even in the remotest corner of the country.

• Uchchtar Axvishkar Yojana: It was launched to promote industry specific need based research so as to keep up competitiveness of Indian industry in the global market.