With inflation and slowing down of the growth rate, how do you see it impacting the opportunities for the youth of this country?
Normally high productivity in the consumer sector will have tremendous effect in bringing down inflation. It can be seen whenever oil price is hiked, it has an impact on inflation. Our solution is the nation has to go for energy independence. That means we have to come out from the dependence on fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal).
Does India have enough opportunities for young graduates emerging out of India's universities? There is a view that the quality of Indian graduates is not good enough for them to be employable. What are your thoughts on this view?
As we are in the ascending economic trajectory, we are concerned about rising unemployment and illiteracy. Unemployment is not the major problem; the question of un-employability is a bigger crisis.
India, 61: The icons that make India
According to the India Labour Report 2007, 53% of employed youth suffer some degree of skill deprivation while only 8 per cent of youth are unemployed. The remaining 47 per cent of India's youth suffer some degree of unemployablity. Only 7 per cent of the population in the 15 to 29 age group has received some form of vocational training.
300 million youth will enter the labour force by 2025. The unfinished product from the education system makes it vulnerable and creates social instability and inequality. The skill deficit among our youth is the most important issue to be addressed on priority. Recently, I went to meet the members of the Communication and Progress (CAP) Foundation at Hyderabad which is addressing this problem in its own unique way.
We need many institutions like CAP to work on mission mode to make every Indian youth fully employable and an active contributor to national development missions. A similar system is required for enhancing the employability quotient of our university graduates.
Image: Muzuku Thurai near Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu, 2006. Children watch a puppet show across the bay from where nearly all their homes were destroyed by a deadly tsunami on December 26, 2005. Photograph: Ami Vitale/Getty Images.
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