Current Affairs — 15 June 2026

Empowered Youth and the Vision for Viksit Bharat at 2047

With nearly two-thirds of India's population below the age of thirty-five, the government has been working on a structural shift in how young citizens are viewed within national development. Instead of treating youth merely as recipients of welfare schemes, the idea now is to treat them as active partners and co-creators of growth. This thinking forms the backbone of the proposed National Youth Policy 2025, which builds on the earlier National Youth Policy of 2014 and lays emphasis on future-ready skills, digital participation, civic engagement and sustainable enterprise. A few numbers help put this in perspective. India runs one of the largest school systems in the world, with close to fifteen lakh schools serving nearly twenty-five crore students. At the higher education level, the number of institutions has crossed seventy thousand. The Academic Bank of Credits, an initiative under the National Education Policy 2020, allows students to accumulate and transfer academic credits across institutions, and has already issued crores of student identities. Alongside this, the Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry, popularly called the APAAR ID, has generated a verified digital academic identity for a very large number of students, allowing their academic and skill records to travel with them throughout their education and career. On the skilling front, the PM-SETU initiative aims to modernise about a thousand government Industrial Training Institutes using a hub-and-spoke model, while the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana continues to train lakhs of candidates across dozens of sectors. The National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme, now in its second phase, has engaged a substantial number of apprentices since 2016, with state governments contributing a part of the stipend. The Prime Minister Internship Scheme, launched to bridge the gap between academic learning and industry requirements, offers tens of thousands of internship opportunities with a monthly stipend, helping young graduates gain real workplace exposure. India's start-up story also features prominently in this vision. The number of recognised start-ups has grown manifold over the last decade, and a large share of these now come from smaller towns and cities, showing that entrepreneurship is no longer confined to metros. The number of unicorns, that is, privately held start-ups valued above a billion dollars, has also grown sharply. Schemes such as Stand-Up India have substantially increased loan approvals for women and Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe entrepreneurs, while the Mera Yuva Bharat platform acts as a single digital window connecting young people to volunteering, skilling and civic opportunities. On the health and sports side, the Khelo India framework has set up talent identification centres across the country, while adolescent health programmes and the Tele-MANAS mental health helpline have expanded access to counselling services for young people. Despite these gains, important challenges remain. There continues to be a gap between formal education and the practical skills employers look for. The rise of the gig economy raises questions about social security and fair wages for young workers. Many early-stage start-ups still face delays due to local-level approvals, even though national platforms have been simplified. The way forward involves expanding artificial intelligence readiness programmes in schools, strengthening seed funding for start-ups in smaller towns, and using the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission to create portable health records for migrant young workers.

An Anatomy of India's Employment Over the Last Decade

While the youth empowerment narrative focuses on opportunities created, a separate and important analysis looked closely at what has actually happened to employment rates over the past ten years. This analysis comes against the backdrop of growing public concern over examination-related issues and a general sense that economic growth has not been translating into adequate job creation. The data shows that the overall employment rate, that is, the proportion of the working-age population that is actually employed, fell from around forty-three percent a decade ago to under thirty-nine percent now. In absolute terms, the number of employed people did increase, but this increase was outpaced by the growth in the working-age population itself, meaning that a larger share of potential workers are now without jobs compared to before. The decline is visible across almost every social group. The employment rate for men fell noticeably, and for women it fell from an already low base to an even lower level, reflecting the persistent challenge of low female labour force participation in India. Even among graduates, who are often assumed to have better job prospects, the employment rate slipped slightly. The decline cuts across religious and caste lines as well, showing that this is a broad structural issue rather than one limited to a particular group. A few trends help explain this picture. First, India has often been described as experiencing jobless growth, where overall economic output rises without a matching rise in formal job creation. Second, many people who have been unemployed for a long time eventually stop actively searching for work and drop out of the labour force altogether. When this happens, they are no longer counted among the unemployed, which can make official unemployment figures look better than the underlying situation actually is. Third, periodic changes in how labour force surveys are conducted have made it harder to compare data over time, leading many analysts to rely on private survey data for continuous tracking. There are some positive signs too. Certain non-agricultural sectors such as digital infrastructure, financial technology and logistics continue to add specialised jobs. A few age groups, particularly those in their late twenties and late fifties, have seen small improvements in employment rates. The overall employed population has also recovered from the sharp dip seen during the pandemic years. Looking ahead, suggestions include shifting the focus of economic policy from headline growth figures to explicit employment targets, re-engaging more confidently with global trade partnerships to support labour-intensive manufacturing, redesigning tax incentives to reward companies that create more formal jobs, and reorienting education curricula to build skills that are less likely to be replaced by automation and artificial intelligence.

India-France Strategic Partnership and the ATL Bridge

During the Prime Minister's visit to Nice in France, the two countries announced a wide-ranging set of outcomes covering technology, defence, trade, education and space. The India-France relationship, which goes back to a strategic partnership agreement signed in 1998, has steadily expanded over the years to cover areas such as civil nuclear energy, climate action and people-to-people exchanges. Among the major announcements was an Innovation Roadmap for the period up to 2030, aimed at deepening cooperation in artificial intelligence, critical technologies and start-up ecosystems, along with greater academic mobility between the two countries. A joint working group on artificial intelligence was also set up to coordinate research collaboration, start-up partnerships and policy approaches to AI governance. On the skilling side, a new National Centre of Excellence for Skilling in Aeronautics is to be established in Kanpur, aimed at strengthening India's aerospace manufacturing and aviation maintenance capabilities. India's Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, will be expanded further into France, including at major airports, making digital payments easier for Indian travellers, students and the diaspora. Ten additional Indian start-ups are set to be incubated at Station F in Paris, which is one of the largest start-up campuses in Europe, giving them access to investors and global markets. A joint Centre of Digital Sciences is also planned, along with a new academic chair on artificial intelligence, innovation and culture at a leading French university, strengthening educational and research ties. Other outcomes include a collaboration on health data and artificial intelligence research between health research bodies of the two countries, a new mechanism aimed at doubling bilateral trade within five years, an economic security dialogue covering critical minerals and semiconductors, cooperation on railway modernisation including high-speed rail, an agreement on protecting classified information to support defence cooperation, and enhanced space cooperation between the space agencies of the two countries covering human spaceflight and microgravity research. A particularly interesting initiative for students is the India-France ATL Bridge, launched during a summit on innovation held in Nice. This is essentially an effort to export India's Atal Tinkering Lab model, which encourages school students to experiment with robotics, three-dimensional printing and design thinking, to France by setting up France's first school innovation lab on similar lines. The idea is to connect young innovators from both countries through exchange programmes and joint problem-solving, inspired by the philosophy of treating the world as one family. The broader summit itself brought together a large number of Indian deep-tech start-ups and premier academic institutions to showcase India's research strengths to global investors and partners, spanning sectors such as semiconductors, quantum computing, space and biotechnology.

The BRICS Indore Declaration on Agriculture

As part of India's presidency of the BRICS grouping, an Agriculture Ministers' meeting held in Indore led to the adoption of what has been called the BRICS Indore Declaration. This is a joint agricultural charter agreed upon by all BRICS member countries, with a strong focus on placing farmers at the centre of policy-making. The declaration sets up a few new cooperative mechanisms. One is a network of centres of excellence on agro-ecology and regenerative agriculture, intended to share research and training on natural and organic farming practices and to promote climate-resilient methods of cultivation. Another is a network on digital agriculture, which aims to encourage cooperation in areas such as artificial intelligence, geospatial mapping and digital public infrastructure for farming, helping member countries share technology that can improve productivity. The declaration also proposes a global forum on farmers' rights in seed systems, which focuses on protecting indigenous seed varieties and traditional knowledge while supporting biodiversity conservation. In addition, a mechanism described as an agro inputs, genetic resources and information network is meant to facilitate the exchange of seeds, agricultural inputs and technical expertise among member countries. Taken together, these initiatives are meant to build a coordinated BRICS approach towards food security and sustainable agriculture, while helping member nations adapt to the growing challenges posed by climate change.

Geographical Indication Tags for Jharkhand's Tribal Crafts

In a development that highlights the cultural and economic value of traditional knowledge, four products from Jharkhand have been granted the Geographical Indication tag. These are Bhagaiya silk and Kuchai silk, both traditional varieties of wild tussar silk known for their natural golden sheen and produced through indigenous hand-reeling methods, Munda jewellery, which is traditional tribal jewellery crafted with distinctive geometric and nature-inspired patterns by the Munda community, and Jharkhand's bamboo craft, which uses locally available bamboo to make baskets, mats and other utility items. A Geographical Indication tag is essentially a form of intellectual property protection given to products that owe their unique qualities to a specific geographical origin. In India, such tags are granted under a law dating back to 1999. The tag legally prevents others from using the product's name outside its notified region, assures buyers of authenticity and traditional methods, helps local artisans earn better incomes through wider recognition, and supports exports and rural tourism while preserving cultural heritage.

Understanding Drop Shipping

With the growth of artificial intelligence tools that can quickly create online stores and the popularity of short-form video content on social media, the e-commerce practice known as drop shipping has been expanding rapidly. In this model, an online seller lists and sells products without holding any physical stock. When a customer places an order and pays the retail price, the seller forwards the order details to a separate wholesaler or manufacturer, who then ships the product directly to the customer. The seller's profit is simply the difference between the price charged to the customer and the wholesale price paid to the supplier, minus advertising costs. This model has clear advantages, such as very low starting capital since there is no need to buy or store inventory, and the ability to reach customers anywhere while the supplier handles logistics and customs. Artificial intelligence tools are increasingly used to automate trend spotting, customer support and marketing within this model. However, there are also downsides. Customers often have no way of knowing who actually manufactured the product, which can affect trust and accountability, and if a seller's online store disappears, customers may be left without any way to get refunds or support. Drop shipping is widely used by social media influencers selling niche products, by larger online marketplaces offering a wide range of goods without warehousing costs, and by entrepreneurs who capitalise quickly on trending products before demand fades.

The Global Memory Chip Shortage and Rising Prices

Another development with everyday relevance is the global shortage of memory chips, which is contributing to higher prices for consumer electronics and is being watched as a factor in retail inflation. A memory chip is an integrated circuit designed specifically to store and retrieve data quickly, as opposed to processors which handle computation. In common memory types such as DRAM, tiny capacitors hold electrical charges that represent data bits, and these charges need to be continuously refreshed to avoid data loss. In non-volatile memory such as NAND flash, used in pen drives and storage cards, electrons remain trapped in a special structure even when the power is switched off, allowing data to be retained permanently. More advanced configurations, known as High Bandwidth Memory, stack multiple memory layers vertically to allow extremely fast data transfer, which is especially important for artificial intelligence processing in data centres. The current shortage is largely because major chip manufacturers are shifting their production capacity towards high-margin chips used in artificial intelligence systems, leaving less capacity for the memory chips used in everyday devices such as smartphones and laptops. This has led to sharp cuts in the supply of certain widely used mobile memory types, pushing up prices of devices, pen drives, solid state drives and hard disks. Since demand is expected to outstrip supply for the next few years, many buyers are entering long-term supply agreements to secure future stock. At the same time, data centres are adopting more efficient cooling technologies to reduce their resource consumption as they expand capacity to meet artificial intelligence demand.

Kaziranga National Park and the Greater Hog Badger

Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve, located in Assam along the floodplains of the Brahmaputra river, is well known as the home of the world's largest population of the great Indian one-horned rhinoceros and is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Spread across the districts of Golaghat, Nagaon and Sonitpur at the edge of the Eastern Himalaya biodiversity hotspot, the park's landscape is shaped by the Brahmaputra's floodplains, dotted with numerous oxbow lakes locally called beels, and covered with tall elephant grasslands, marshy savannas, and patches of semi-evergreen and moist deciduous forest. Recently, the park released its first-ever scientific assessment of a lesser-known resident, the greater hog badger, known scientifically as Arctonyx collaris and called mati gahori, or earth pig, in Assamese because of its pig-like snout and digging habits. It is the largest among the world's three hog badger species and is a nocturnal, burrowing omnivore found across parts of South, Central and Southeast Asia, including Bangladesh, northeastern India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The greater hog badger is classified as Vulnerable on the global conservation list maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and within India it receives the highest level of legal protection under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. Ecologically, its constant digging and foraging help in turning over soil and leaf litter, which aids nutrient distribution, soil aeration, and the creation of small habitats useful to other invertebrates and small animals. Being nocturnal and elusive, it relies heavily on dense forest cover, and the healthy population recorded in Kaziranga's assessment is being seen as a positive indicator for the park's broader ecosystem health.