The Hindu Gist - 26th August, 2026
1 . Root Cause
The core problem: education–employment mismatch
- The recent youth agitation highlights that the examination crisis is only a symptom; the deeper problem is the shortage of quality jobs.
- Competitive exams have become disproportionately important because limited professional education and employment opportunities push large numbers of youth towards a few government/college entrance examinations.
- High competition: Around 22 lakh candidates appeared for this year’s medical entrance exam for about 4 lakh undergraduate seats, with fewer than 10,000 seats in the top 50 colleges; engineering admissions show a similar pattern.
- Rising coaching dependence: Private coaching accounts for 16% of an Indian family’s spending on a child’s education, up from 5% in 2018. Thus, cheaper online coaching through India’s digital public infrastructure can improve access, but cannot resolve the underlying employment problem.
- Weak transition from education to work: PLFS data cited in the piece suggests that among every 100 graduates aged 15–29, only about 26 are in regular salaried employment, and only four have a salaried job with both a contract and social security.
Why job creation remains weak?
- Despite 6–6.5% economic growth, the sector best placed to absorb educated youth — manufacturing — remains around one-sixth of GVA, far below the level needed for large-scale employment generation.
- Private corporate investment has weakened substantially, falling from 3% of GDP in 2007–08 to 10.3% in 2024–25, limiting expansion of productive capacity and formal employment.
- The policy challenge is therefore not merely to create more educated youth, but to ensure that economic growth translates into employment, particularly for graduates and young entrants.
Way forward: shift from exam-centric to employment-centric policy
- Public investment should strengthen industrial capacity and crowd in private investment.
- Support an export-led industrial strategy, rather than excessive reliance on domestic protection, to create globally competitive manufacturing jobs.
- Temper regulatory zeal that selectively targets enterprises and particularly affects medium-sized firms, which have significant potential for employment generation.
- Expand affordable digital coaching and skilling, but treat these as complementary measures rather than substitutes for job creation.
- The experience of Vietnam shows the potential of export-oriented industrialisation to generate employment at scale.
2. Escape Velocity
India’s space programme has moved from being a symbol of technological competency to becoming critical infrastructure for navigation, banking, weather and national security. With private participation expanding, the challenge is now to convert technological capability into a reliable, regular and commercially competitive space ecosystem. The emerging opportunity lies not merely in rockets, but in the wider space economy and downstream applications.
Key Challenges
- High launch costs: India’s estimated 2025 cost of placing 1 kg in Low-Earth Orbit was $13,302, against $5,809 in China and a global average of $3,868, reducing competitiveness.
- Irregular launch cadence: India conducted only 5 launches in 2025 against 30 projected, pointing to a gap in reliability and regularity.
- Heavy-payload constraint: GSAT-N2 (4,700 kg) had to be launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 because of limitations in India’s available launch capacity, indicating the need for stronger heavy-lift capability.
- Private-sector limitations: A private space sector cannot succeed merely through the production of rockets and launch vehicles; it needs a broader ecosystem, sustained demand, investment and commercially viable opportunities.
- Global competition: India must build a strong reputation for reliability, while competing with lower-cost and high-frequency launch providers.
Building a Competitive Space Economy
- Shift from capability to dependable capability by ensuring regular, predictable and reliable launches.
- Develop the complete space value chain, including satellites, space-based data, communication, navigation and downstream applications.
- Enable the private sector to achieve scale and innovation, rather than limiting it to launch-vehicle manufacturing.
- Treat space as an economic sector capable of generating jobs, long-term capital, tax revenues and technological spillovers.
- Emerging opportunities such as Moon bases and interplanetary activities can become the next frontier, but India must first build the reliability and commercial ecosystem that turns space from an “ornament” into an engine of economic and strategic value.
3 . End the culture of secrecy in judicial appointments
- The collegium is a judicial creation, evolving through the First Judges Case (1981), Second Judges Case (1993) and Third Judges Case (1998), which shifted primacy in judicial appointments from the executive to the judiciary.
- The rationale was to protect judicial independence from political interference, but nearly three decades later, the process remains among the least transparent areas of constitutional governance.
Concerns with the Present System
- Opacity in selection: There is no prior notification of vacancies, eligibility matrix or known methodology for assessing candidates, making the basis of selection difficult to scrutinise.
- Resolutions without reasons: Transparency has weakened since November 28, 2024, when collegium resolutions stopped naming participating members or disclosing reasoning. The CJI later cited concerns that disclosure could harm candidates’ careers.
- Familial links and “Uncle Judges”: In 2018, the Union government flagged 11 of 33 Allahabad High Court recommendations as involving relatives of sitting/retired judges; a 2025 assessment found nearly 30% of Supreme Court judges had familial links to former judges. Without a publicly defined selection matrix, distinguishing merit from judicial lineage becomes difficult.
- Constitutional equality: Articles 14 and 16 guarantee equality and equal opportunity in public employment. In Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi, the Court held that public appointments cannot ordinarily be made through backdoor methods and should follow a transparent procedure open to eligible candidates.
- Public confidence: Judicial appointments are now dissected on social media within minutes. Closed-door decision-making and unexplained selections can erode the legitimacy and credibility of the judiciary.
Measures for coexistence of judicial independence and institutional accountability
- Modernise the collegium rather than dismantle it through a transparent framework that: anticipates vacancies;invites applications from eligible advocates; publishes objective eligibility criteria; records reasoned recommendations explaining why one candidate is preferred over another.
- Address nepotism concerns: The proposal to bar judges’ kin from consideration may be examined, while recognising that familial connection alone should not automatically determine merit.
- Protect legitimate confidentiality: Confidential inputs on integrity may remain protected; transparency should focus on the process, criteria and reasoning, not disclosure of every file.
- Learn from other democracies: The UK Judicial Appointments Commission publicly advertises vacancies and conducts structured interviews, while South Africa’s Judicial Service Commission publicly invites nominations and conducts televised interviews.
4 . AI Training & Destruction of Physical Books
AI firms increasingly require high-quality datasets to train models, while the internet is becoming saturated with AI-generated content and rare/out-of-print books are becoming harder to access. Reports of companies scanning and then destroying physical books have therefore raised concerns that the race for AI development may come at the cost of copyright, authors’ rights and literary preservation.
The central legal question is whether using copyrighted books to train AI amounts to “fair use” or unauthorised exploitation. Digitising purchased books may, in some circumstances, be considered a transformative use, but the controversy becomes sharper when physical copies are destroyed after scanning. It also raises concerns about the rights of authors and the wider cultural value of rare books, which cannot simply be reduced to training data.
The issue therefore calls for a balance between AI innovation and copyright protection. Greater transparency in training datasets, legitimate acquisition/licensing of copyrighted material and preservation of rare and out-of-print works are essential. AI’s demand for knowledge should contribute to wider access and preservation of literature, rather than turning valuable physical books into disposable inputs for model development.
The Indian Express Gist - 26th August, 2026
1 . Higher Education–Employment Mismatch
- NITI Aayog has flagged weak job linkages in generic degrees such as A., B.Sc. and B.Com; over 90% of graduates are employed in roles not aligned with their qualifications, while only 8.25% are in qualification-aligned jobs.
- Educated unemployment is 13% among graduates and 4% among graduate women, against the national rate of 3.2%.
- The core issue is a disconnect between what is taught and what the labour market demands, with curricula remaining outdated and misaligned with industry needs.
Key Concerns
- Degree-centric education: Of 4 crore undergraduate students, 1.13 crore are in B.A., while B.Sc. and B.Com enrolment together exceeds 2 crore.
- Weak vocational pathways: ITIs and diploma programmes face social stigma, while lack of awareness discourages skilling; 52% of formal workers and 55% of informal workers do not pursue skilling.
- Poor job quality: Only 26% of graduates aged 15–29 are in regular salaried employment, and just 4% of graduates have a salaried job with a contract and social security.
- Despite 6–6.5% growth, manufacturing contributes only around one-sixth of GVA, while private investment has fallen from 3% to 10.3% of GDP between 2007–08 and 2024–25.
Way Forward
- Shift from standalone skilling to demand-driven, outcome-linked and industry-backed models.
- Promote specialised, job-linked programmes, particularly in green industries and electric vehicles, with greater focus on apprenticeships.
- Modernise curricula and strengthen industry–education linkages, while reducing the social stigma around vocational education, ITIs and diplomas.
The objective should be to move from degree-centric education to employability and job-ready skills.
2. Warmer oceans are sounding a warning
- Global ocean warming is entering “unfamiliar territory”: global sea-surface temperature reached 09°C in March 2024, surpassing the previous record; on August 22, rapidly intensifying El Niño + global warming pushed it again to 21°C.
- The oceans are major buffers against climate change, absorbing more than 90% of excess heat generated by global warming (IPCC/NASA), thereby delaying its most catastrophic consequences.
- However, this “sequestering” of heat has come at a cost, with rising ocean temperatures increasingly disrupting marine and human systems.
Implications of Ocean Warming
- Marine ecosystems: Ocean warming places stress on marine ecosystems and disrupts food webs.
- Weather regulation: It affects the ocean’s capacity to regulate weather, contributing to unusual climate events.
- Extreme weather: A heatwave overwhelmed Europe; parts of India experienced floods despite an erratic monsoon, while unseasonal snowfall disrupted life in South America.
- Sea-level rise: Ocean warming contributes to rising sea levels; by the end of 2025, global average sea level was about 11 cm higher than in January 1993.
- These changes also create avoidable socio-economic losses, including illness, disruption of small businesses and prolonged recovery from repeated flooding.
Way Forward
- Mitigation: Continue cutting fossil-fuel consumption, accelerating the transition to clean energy and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
- Adaptation: Adaptation to weather vagaries, historically secondary to mitigation, needs a stronger footing in climate policy, as the consequences of past warming will persist even if emissions fall sharply.
- For India, with a coastline of nearly 10,000 km, priorities include protecting coastal populations, restoring natural barriers against raging waters, improving urban drainage, and developing climate-informed agriculture and water-management systems.
3 . India–Central Asia Relations: From Romance to Realism
- After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, India sought to reconnect with the newly independent Central Asian republics, but lack of direct access, limited national capabilities and geopolitical headwinds have constrained engagement.
- India’s earlier vision of a broader India–Central Asia–Afghanistan connectivity remained unrealised due to Afghanistan’s conflicts and enduring India–Pakistan tensions.
- The region is strategically important as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan sit between Russia, China and the wider Middle East.
Changing Geopolitical Landscape
- Central Asia is increasingly asserting itself as a region in its own right, rather than merely a collection of post-Soviet republics; settlement of Fergana Valley border disputes and growing regional trade reflect this trend.
- The traditional “Great Game” framework of competing external powers is becoming inadequate. Central Asian states are pursuing diversified partnerships with the EU, China, Russia, U.S. and Japan rather than exclusive alignments.
- Russia’s Ukraine war and China’s growing economic influence have altered the regional balance; Europe, Japan and other powers are expanding engagement through connectivity, critical minerals and energy corridors.
- The region’s growing Middle East linkages and the Abraham Accords have widened its geopolitical horizons beyond the traditional Russia–China framework.
- Afghanistan remains a concern: Central Asian states, including Tajikistan, have moved towards pragmatic engagement with the Taliban while also confronting radical forces and issues such as management of the Amu Darya’s shared waters.
- India faces a structural disadvantage: no direct land access. The overland route is constrained, while Chabahar and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) remain alternatives, with regional conflicts complicating their prospects.
India’s Way Forward: Less Romance, More Realism
- India cannot match China’s infrastructure spending, Russia’s geographic advantages or Türkiye’s direct access across the Caspian; therefore, sustained political attention must be matched by a practical economic agenda.
- Move beyond grand schemes towards modest, sustained and steadily expanding Indian presence, focusing on areas where India can contribute.
- Strengthen economic and connectivity engagement, while exploring opportunities in energy, critical minerals, trade and transport corridors.
- India should also demonstrate greater diplomatic flexibility towards Pakistan, Turkiye and Azerbaijan to retain room for manoeuvre.
4 . ‘Essential Practice’ Test: Why Allahabad HC Rejected Schoolgirl’s Hijab Plea
The Allahabad High Court rejected a Muslim schoolgirl’s plea to wear hijab with her school uniform, holding that religious necessity could not be established through a “bare assertion.” While the student invoked Article 25 and Article 19(1)(a), the Court upheld the school’s uniform and disciplinary requirements, observing that allowing a headscarf would affect the uniform’s character and institutional identity.
On the “essential religious practice” issue, the Court found no authoritative religious text or expert evidence establishing classroom hijab as obligatory and held that the uniform requirement did not violate Articles 14, 15 or 19. The issue remains contested after a 2:1 Supreme Court split, with Justice Hemant Gupta supporting the uniform requirement and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia holding that “a girl child has the right to wear hijab”; the matter has been referred to a larger Bench.
