Mr Narendra Modi, who is now into his third term as the nation’s Prime Minister, often reminds his fellow citizens as well as world leaders about the demographic dividend India is about to harvest in the near future. He has statistics on his side — more than half of India’s population is aged below 30, that is, about 70 crore people are ready to be in the service of the nation, awaiting their turn. This is an advantage no other country can claim as its own.
But that’s only one side of the story. The other, darker, side is that India is passing through a time when unemployment is at its peak in terms of absolute numbers. While politicians bandy about figures proclaiming fast growth of the economy, economists are worried about growth in joblessness and surging numbers of the educated unemployed.
Surveys had predicted that unemployment would be one of the key issues in the last general election, and the results did stop the BJP from bagging a comfortable majority. It is in this context that the news reports — of irregularities in competitive examinations conducted — explode in the face of the nation. It was in February this year the Uttar Pradesh government was forced to cancel the recruitment examination for police constables for which 43 lakh appeared.
This was after allegations that the question papers were available for a price, ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakh. The leak of question papers of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance test (Neet-UG) conducted for a.