&w=3840&q=100)
India's distant promises: Clarity needed for Viksit Bharat, Net Zero goals
Ajay Tyagi Mumbai
Listen to This Article
Aspirations, backed by conviction, motivate an individual, a company, or a nation to achieve progress and growth. A corporation's vision and mission documents depict its aspirations. As for nations, many aspirations are embedded in various public documents, including some core ones in their constitutions. In addition, from time to time, the political leadership sets various aspirational goals, guided by ideology, expediency, and other commitments.
This article is about the two most ambitious long-term declarations made by the present political leadership in India: Viksit Bharat by 2047 and Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2070. The paths to realise these two

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Indian Express
7 hours ago
- Indian Express
For a successful digital revolution, India needs to fix the institutional neglect plaguing our school system
Written by Vidyasagar Sharma Smriti Irani, in her recent article titled 'The creativity curriculum,' (IE, July, 28) built an ideal vision of India where every young person has the potential to be a creator; and numerous creativities such as storytelling, online teaching, and entrepreneurship can fulfil the vision of 'Viksit Bharat' by 2047. Her emphasis on the idea of the creative economy is indeed a pressing need in contemporary India. The stories she cited — from regional YouTubers to climate-rap-artists — are inspiring. However, beneath such inspiring anecdotes lies a harsher reality: India's educational systems and infrastructure are in severe crisis. To imagine a future for young generations built on creative capacity without acknowledging the material and digital foundations of our educational system is problematic. The recent incident in Rajasthan, where the roof of a government primary school collapsed during morning prayers, starkly illustrates the most basic need of any educational institution: A safe classroom, which our government schools have yet to achieve. This is not an isolated incident. In rural and backward regions, many school buildings are in a state of decay. Separate toilets for girls are missing, and basic drinking water is unavailable. In such a state of infrastructural crisis, how can we expect our young minds to unleash creativity and develop design thinking skills? The vision for Creative India, as pointed out by Irani, proposes 'startup labs' and 'maker spaces' beyond part-time and extracurricular activities. However, we have not yet ensured that every school has a functional science lab or a well-equipped library. Irani's central argument is that digital creators, coming from villages to slums, are taking India into a state of digital revolution. However, she did not address the issue of the digital divide in India. Drishya Thekkumbad, in her article 'Digital Dreams, Divided Realities: Navigating Educational Access in India,' highlighted that 'only 32.4 per cent of India's 1.47 million schools have access to functional computers. Only 24.4 per cent have smart classrooms to aid teaching new-age skills.' She further argued that the disparity is worse in government and rurally located schools, where access to WiFi, computers, and other equipment lags compared to private and urban-centric schools. This stark digital gap leaves a large number of underprivileged students excluded from the benefits of online education, despite Irani's confidence in 'India's development frontier with strong, inclusive opportunities.' During the Covid pandemic, the image of students climbing to rooftops or travelling miles away from home to catch a signal to attend their classes is still vivid in our memories. If that is the criterion of digital infrastructure, I doubt that a young student from a government school located in a remote village of Bihar should be expected to produce digital portfolios, social-impact stories, or build entrepreneurial content for the wider mass. While NEP indeed incorporates many good things, the practice of critical thinking seems to be on paper. We have seen how the textbooks of social sciences are being redesigned to cater to the ideological interests of the ruling establishment. The de-linking of creativity from criticality will be mere performance, not transformation. If we want to build Viksit Bharat — I would prefer what B R Ambedkar says, 'Prabuddha Bharat', an enlightened India — we must inculcate critical pedagogy in our curriculum, foster a scientific temperament, and cultivate civic consciousness among our young generations. Instead, the current trajectory of education reform tends to reduce critical and creative learning to design projects and poster-making, while discouraging in-depth engagement with socio-political realities. Irani's vision for a creator-led India is appealing, but it seems to be incomplete. Creativity needs a strong foundation of public education, critical pedagogical methods, digital inclusion, and social justice. Educational institutions must have adequate infrastructure, well-trained and well-paid teachers, and policies that prioritise student input over imposing rules and regulations. The vision of 'Viksit Bharat' must be based on the secular and scientific development of the young mind, and let's be clear: The issue isn't just about imagination, but also institutional neglect. No amount of storytelling can solve that. The writer is a fellow at the faculty of Sociology, University of Bielefeld, Germany


Indian Express
9 hours ago
- Indian Express
India can weather even a 50 bps growth sacrifice but for a year: Former RBI governor D Subbarao
Indian Economy, US Tariff on India: The hike in US tariffs on Indian imports to 50 per cent is likely to have significant medium to long term implications for India, said D Subbarao, veteran economist, author and former governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Presently, exports account for about 22 per cent of India's GDP, with the US contributing approximately 17 per cent to that export share. Subbarao feels that India may be able to weather even a 50 basis points sacrifice in growth for a year because it is still a fast-growing economy. A hit of 40 to 50 basis points means a GDP growth that is down from 6.5 per cent to 6.1 per cent or even 6 per cent. However, in the medium to longer term, which is beyond a year, India cannot afford to sacrifice this 50 basis points on a year-on-year basis. This is all the more crucial for India, being a growing economy that has aspirations for a seat at the high table of rich nations be a $ 30 trillion economy. To get there, growth in the early years has to be high as high growth on a larger base in later years will be difficult. 'A 50 bps loss each year, will, in the long run upset the country's long-term objective to emerge as a Viksit Bharat or a developed economy by 2047,' he says. 'People are talking about the need to diversify our exports to other geographies, explore newer sources of exports, improve the infrastructure in the country to attract more tourists for instance, enter into free trade agreements with other countries and trading blocks,' says Dr Subbarao. 'All of these,' he says, 'we must pursue irrespective of what happens in the trade with the US.' Some of these could include concluding FTAs with EU, East Asian nations or joining the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership). The CPTPP is a free trade agreement between a dozen countries – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam apart from the United Kingdom. Impact at the disaggregated level But on the implications of the latest news on the levies announced by the US (while we are still unaware of what the final negotiations will yield) what Dr Subbarao also finds significant is that the current numbers, apart from the impact at an aggregate level on the growth rate of the economy, also entail an adverse impact at a disaggregated level and especially on the low income segments of the population. 'This is because the hit will be in labour-intensive sectors like machinery and gems and jewellery that form major part of the exports to the US. Add to this, if India were to pivot from Russia to Saudi Arabia, for sourcing its petroleum needs, the aggregate cost of oil will increase for India and this will impact the inflation rate and the entire economy with higher impact on low-income households,' he says. Also, Dr Subbarao reminds, 'higher oil prices globally will reflect in lowering of demand and thereby lower the global growth rates, which in turn, could have adverse implications for India. Interrogate the internet or tap the easily accessible AI assistants and various numbers are being discussed. For example, there are estimates that suggest the negative impact on the exports to the US resulting in a decline in exports by as much as 40 per cent. A back of the envelope calculation of the net impact on the GDP taking into consideration also the export value to the US, the GVA (gross value added) of exports, will throw up a number of around US $ 20 billion for a full year but if, as several economists and industry leaders expect, nearly half of that could be offset by the other alternatives that the country could explore, the net direct impact would at most be 0.4 per cent of GDP (which today is at nearly $ 4 trillion). Hence, the argument doing the rounds is that India would be in a position to weather the impact. But the point Dr Subbarao is making is that this may not be sustainable in the medium to longer term and this is crucial given India's long term high growth, developed economy, aspirations. (

Time of India
a day ago
- Time of India
'Will Shape India's Future as a Developed Nation': Modi Inaugurates Kartavya Bhavan
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated Kartavya Bhavan, a state-of-the-art building in New Delhi that will house major ministries and guide the future of India's policymaking. Calling it more than just infrastructure, PM Modi said Kartavya Bhavan represents the soul of a developed India (Viksit Bharat). With advanced amenities and centralised administrative power, the building is part of a historic transformation reshaping the national capital, from Kartavya Path to Bharat Mandapam, the New Parliament, and more. PM Modi called 'Kartavya' not just a duty but India's karmic force, saying this new hub will define how the aspirations of crores of Indians will be realized. As India races toward 2047, Kartavya Bhavan stands as a pillar of New India's governance, strength, and soul. Watch how this space will shape historic decisions for generations.#pmmodi #kartavyabhavan #vikshitbharat #newindia #modiinfrastructure #governance #newdelhi #kartavyapath #modernindia #nationbuilding #infrastructuredevelopment #digitalgovernance #breakingnews #trending #trendingnow #toi #bharat #toibharat #indianews Read More