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By:

Rajendra Joshi

3 December 2024 at 9:20:26 am

The Warning Beyond NEET

The Jantar Mantar protests exposed the widening gap between education, employment and growth. The month-long protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar may have formally ended, but the political and economic questions it raised will linger. Triggered by the NEET paper leak, the movement became a major expression of youth discontent. What began as a demand for a fair examination system became a broader indictment of an economic model that promises opportunity but increasingly fails to deliver...

The Warning Beyond NEET

The Jantar Mantar protests exposed the widening gap between education, employment and growth. The month-long protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar may have formally ended, but the political and economic questions it raised will linger. Triggered by the NEET paper leak, the movement became a major expression of youth discontent. What began as a demand for a fair examination system became a broader indictment of an economic model that promises opportunity but increasingly fails to deliver employment. The government initially treated the protests as a law-and-order issue. That changed when the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fountainhead of the ruling establishment, publicly criticised police action and expressed solidarity with the students. The subsequent resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, withdrawal of criminal cases and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's endorsement of the integrity and aspirations of India's Gen Z transformed the political narrative. The issue had moved beyond examination reform to whether India's development model is serving its young citizens. The NEET paper leak was merely the spark. The fuel had accumulated through rising educated unemployment, declining confidence in public institutions and growing frustration among millions of young Indians. Education is increasingly seen as an uncertain investment rather than a guaranteed pathway to opportunity. Every examination scandal reinforces the perception that merit alone is insufficient, while recruitment delays deepen the belief that the system is failing those who have done everything expected of them. India has celebrated its demographic dividend for nearly two decades, projecting its young workforce as its greatest competitive advantage. But demographic dividends are never automatic. They generate prosperity only when education is matched by employment, productivity and rising incomes. Otherwise, they become demographic liabilities that breed frustration rather than growth. The evidence suggests India is approaching that inflection point. GDP has expanded impressively over the past two decades, yet employment has failed to keep pace. Employment elasticity has weakened sharply. During the 1980s, every percentage point of GDP growth generated roughly half a percentage point increase in employment. Today the ratio is estimated at about 0.16, among the lowest for major emerging economies. Growth continues; jobs do not. This disconnect reflects India's growth strategy. Public policy has increasingly favoured capital-intensive industries through subsidies, tax incentives and investment support. Such sectors contribute to output and productivity but generate relatively fewer jobs. Agriculture continues to suffer from incomplete reforms and low productivity. Manufacturing has not expanded fast enough to absorb new workers, while artificial intelligence and automation are reducing opportunities in occupations once regarded as gateways to middle-class prosperity. India thus faces a paradox: it is producing more graduates while creating fewer opportunities to absorb them. The comparison with Asia is instructive. Vietnam and Bangladesh have pursued manufacturing-led growth that has generated substantially higher employment relative to economic expansion. Vietnam's employment-to-population ratio is estimated at nearly three-fourths, compared with about one-half in India. Vietnam has also moved into the upper-middle-income category, while India remains a lower-middle-income economy. These comparisons do not diminish India's achievements. They highlight the urgency of correcting structural weaknesses before they become politically destabilising. History demonstrates the risks of prolonged youth unemployment. The Arab Spring showed how educated but unemployed youth can transform political landscapes. More recently, political instability in Bangladesh and Nepal has reflected frustration among younger populations facing shrinking opportunities. India's democratic institutions are stronger, and its circumstances are different. Yet no democracy can indefinitely ignore the aspirations of its largest demographic group. The significance of Jantar Mantar lies here. India's Gen Z is organised, digitally connected and politically conscious. Social media transformed local grievances into a national movement within days, while traditional political parties largely responded after the sentiment had acquired independent momentum. The RSS intervention further complicated the government's challenge. Once protesting students found resonance within the ideological ecosystem closest to the ruling establishment, the issue ceased to be a partisan confrontation. It became an internal warning that India's youth expect credible institutions, transparent examinations and, above all, meaningful employment. The Centre's examination reforms are necessary but insufficient. Restoring the credibility of competitive examinations addresses only one symptom. The larger challenge is to redesign India's growth strategy around employment. Labour-intensive manufacturing, support for small and medium enterprises, investment in skills, higher-education reform and greater attention to employment outcomes must become central to economic planning. The Jantar Mantar agitation should not be remembered simply as the NEET protests. It marked a moment when India's youngest generation questioned the assumptions underlying the country's development model. Governments can manage protests and reform examinations. But unless economic growth translates into broad-based employment, similar movements will return. India's demographic dividend remains its greatest opportunity. It could equally become its greatest challenge. The warning has been delivered. The question is whether policymakers are prepared to listen.

Frozen Legacy

Updated: Jan 13, 2025

A 1.2-million-year-old Antarctic ice core could reveal the secrets of ancient climate upheavals and humanity’s near-extinction.

Antarctic

European scientists have achieved a landmark breakthrough by extracting a 2.8-kilometer-long ice core from Little Dome C, a remote site on the Antarctic plateau. The core, dating back at least 1.2 million years, is the oldest ice ever recovered, preserving within it ancient air bubbles that could unravel the enduring mysteries of Earth’s climate and humanity’s precarious past.


The project, aptly named Beyond EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica), builds on the success of a previous EPICA campaign that extended the climate record to 800,000 years ago. Funded by the European Union and coordinated by Italy, it involved a multi-nation effort to reach bedrock beneath East Antarctica, 3,000 meters above sea level. Over four gruelling summers, researchers endured temperatures as low as -35°C, using snowmobiles to transport equipment and laboratories across 40 kilometers of ice. The culmination of this effort is an unprecedented glimpse into a pivotal epoch in Earth’s history - the Mid-Pleistocene Transition.


The notion of studying ice to understand climate was first proposed in the mid-20th century when scientists recognized that ice layers could serve as annual records, much like tree rings. Early expeditions, such as those in Greenland during the 1960s, provided the first glimpses into ancient climates. However, it wasn’t until the 1990s and 2000s, with projects like EPICA and the Russian-led Vostok core, that researchers uncovered detailed records of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane levels stretching back hundreds of thousands of years.


Beyond EPICA extends this timeline by another 400,000 years, entering a period of profound climatic and evolutionary change. Around 900,000 to 1.2 million years ago, Earth’s glacial cycles—alternating between cold glacial and warmer interglacial periods—shifted dramatically. Before this transition, these cycles occurred every 41,000 years, driven by changes in Earth’s axial tilt. Afterward, they lengthened to 100,000 years, suggesting a new and poorly understood driver. This shift, known as the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, is a central focus of the new research.


The Transition coincided with a precarious chapter in human prehistory. Some theories suggest that during this period, our ancestors experienced a population bottleneck, with numbers possibly falling to as few as 1,000 individuals. This near-extinction event raises tantalizing questions: Was climate change the culprit? Did it disrupt food sources or migration patterns?


While direct evidence linking climate to this evolutionary crisis remains elusive, the ice core could provide vital clues. Air bubbles trapped in the ice contain pristine samples of ancient atmospheres, allowing scientists to measure past levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. Early analyses have already shown that even during the warmest periods of the past 800,000 years, greenhouse gas levels never approached today’s figures, which are 50 percent higher due to human activities.


This stark contrast underscores the unprecedented nature of modern climate change. It also highlights the importance of understanding how natural climate systems functioned in the past to anticipate future shifts.


Seven nations, including the United States, China, and Japan, have also been racing to extract the oldest ice from Antarctica, recognizing its value in decoding climate dynamics. The urgency of this research cannot be overstated. Antarctica’s ice sheets are melting at alarming rates due to rising global temperatures, threatening to erase the pristine records they contain. In this context, Beyond EPICA represents a race against time as much as it does a quest for knowledge.


The historical significance of this discovery lies in its potential to answer fundamental questions about Earth’s climate. Why did glacial cycles stretch from 41,000 to 100,000 years? Did changes in Earth’s orbit, greenhouse gas feedback loops, or oceanic circulation drive this shift? And how might these mechanisms respond to the rapid warming of today?


From the first ice cores drilled in Greenland to the latest breakthrough in Antarctica, the study of ancient ice has revolutionized our understanding of climate change and Beyond EPICA is the latest chapter in this saga.

As scientists begin the painstaking analysis of their frozen treasure, the world awaits answers to questions that have lingered for millennia. What they uncover could redefine our understanding of Earth’s past and humanity’s future.

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