Fostering youth empowerment: A driving force for sustainable India

Swami Vivekananda has made remarkable speeches to reinforce and inspire the youth who have immense potential in shaping the country's future. If we make the youth realise their innate energy, power and capabilities then nothing can stop India from becoming a global superpower, writes Himachalam Dasaraju.

Hyderabad:Swami Vivekananda, who is a real source of inspiration for the youth, believed that the youth are a country's greatest assets and its backbone. The future of a country relies on how we nurture, inspire, educate and make the youth skillfully brilliant and knowledgeable human resources.

The National Youth Day is being observed on January 12 since 1985 to commemorate Vivekananda's birth anniversary. The day is also intended at reviewing the practical problems, strengths, weaknesses, and challenges faced by the youth in the context of global changes and also draws special attention from the national and international community for resolving their issues across the sectors for their wellbeing.

Youth potential and empowerment: A need of the hour

India’s economic growth depends upon how India nurtures its youth. Youth play a vital role in resilient nation-building. UN has assigned a prime role to youth in achieving most of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), (17 SDGs), across the world. Youth are the torch-bearers of the 2030 agenda of UN SDGs.

India has the largest youth population in the world and will be a relatively young country in 2030 with 365 million in the 15 – 29 age group. India has a huge potential youth population in the world with around 808 million people (66% of the total population) under the age of 35. (National Youth Policy, August 2022).

The National Youth Policy aligned with the UN SDGs, mainly encompasses quality in education, inequalities reduction, decent work environment and economic growth. It is very interesting to observe that the “Youth in India 2022” report highlighted that the youth in the age group of 15 to 29 (27.2 % of the population as of 2021), is expected to decrease to 22.7% by 2036, whereas the share of elderly is expected to increase during 2021- 2036. The total youth population increased from 222.7 million in 1991 to 333.4 million in 2011 and is expected to reach 400.0 million by 2022 and the number will decrease to 345.5 million by 2036.

Problems of youth:

The report World Youth Report (WYR) has highlighted the issues and urgent need for commitment to the world programme of action goals, as around 200 million youth are in poverty, 130 million youth are illiterates, 88 million are unemployed, 10 million young people are suffering with HIV/AIDS, more than 500 million youth are living in less than $2 a day and 113 million are not in schools. Some other issues are limited access to education, gainful employment, job security, technology disruptions, skill updating, gender equity, stress at workplace, depression, exploitation, lack of work satisfaction and so on.

Unemployment is a critical issue in any country and India is not an exception. According to Forbes India (November 1, 2023) data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the unemployment rate in India increased to its highest level in the recent past mainly due to rising joblessness in the rural sector.

The overall unemployment rate in India was 7.95% in July 2023, which rose to 10.05% in October 2023 from 7.33% in 2022. The figures were 5.98% in 2021 and 8.00% in 2020.

As per CMIE, the youth are facing critical unemployment issues, as the unemployment rate of youth (15 – 24 years), stood at 45.4% in 2022-23, which is alarmingly high.

According to the report “Mental State of India: The Internet-enabled Youth” 2023 by Sapien Labs Centre for the Human Brain and Mind, around 51% of youth were distressed or struggling in 2023, which indicates that they had a mental health quotient (MHQ) of less than 0.

What is needed?

1) Youth should be more accessible to get trained in emerging technologies and equipped with the required knowledge and skills.

2) Skill updating in emerging technology like AI and automation is essential to catch up with global opportunities.

3) The government should also focus on encouraging the people to utilise the existing education which paves the way for the betterment of life.

4) The government should develop a comprehensive mechanism to generate employment opportunities for youth to overcome issues like unemployment, education for the poor and so on.

5) They should encourage youth in the areas of their interest like sports, politics, arts, technology, and entrepreneurship. Youths are the leaders of tomorrow. They should be allowed to participate and learn what leadership is all about through practice.

6) Educational institutions should produce job providers (entrepreneurs) rather than job seekers.

7) Teachers apart from parents, should play a key role in molding students as brave, ethical and knowledgeable. They should make the youth realise their responsibilities towards nation-building by instilling good values, knowledge and ethical behaviour.

8) As we have abundant young human resources, with a large digitally-enabled business network, we should build the required skills and capabilities of youth necessary to drive innovation and entrepreneurship. If youth can be enriched with skills, capabilities for growth and new solutions, then the opportunities are endless both domestically and abroad.

9) The entrepreneurship landscape has a pivotal role in shaping young entrepreneurs and their innovation in the new technology-based global economy. The success of youth in this endeavour ultimately depends upon the commitment, willpower, and spirit of entrepreneurship among youth. Young entrepreneurship alone would change the living conditions of the people and help to contribute in national development.

10) Government policy and support system for entrepreneurs would be a great propeller for achieving inclusive and sustainable economic development.

11) AI will set new market platforms by revolutionising the business landscape in the years to come with more emphasis on ethical AI deployment, risk mitigation and transference which will make a more accountable and secure AI landscape across the sectors and the world.

Swami Vivekananda had aptly said, “See for the highest, aim at that highest and you shall reach the highest”. It’s true that students should always look high, aim high and have meticulous planning to reach high. It’s not an impossible thing for them provided students put required hard work, along with commitment, dedication, sincerity and honesty. Such kind of hard work, dedication and commitment should be taught to the students at the school and college levels.

Youth should be made knowledgeable, ethical, honest, sincere, hardworking, dedicated, work focused and good citizens of this country. Every youth has innate energy, power, capability and skill to do anything if we make them realise their capabilities. If this happens, then nothing can stop India from becoming a global superpower, as youth power is a deciding factor across the sectors.

Let us awaken them to build a resilient nation for the sustainable economic development of India. Stop brain-drain and retain the youngsters in our country and create a spirit of entrepreneurship among young and talented people.

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