Young and Restless India » YoungRestlessIndians(YRI)

‘Y Not’ – Voice of the Next Generation

Raj — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:13:48 +0000

CNN-IBN, India’s No.1 English News Channel presents ‘Y Not’ – a show that will strive to motivate and provide a forum to young India to question and discuss the issues that matter to them. ‘Y Not’ will be the platform for the youth to voice their opinions through debates on current issues like moral policing, drug abuse, education, racism, women security, ragging, gay rights and so on. The show will break all taboos on the topics that are normally brushed under and will be current in content, questioning and analysing in its slant and irreverent in its attitude and style.

The show will pick a current issue and scrutinize it by eloquent, opinionated young people. It will also showcase young achievers who are creators of their own leanings from all lengths of life from across the country.

CNN IBN also has couple of other programs like ‘Young Turks’ and ‘Gen Next‘ that cashes on the ‘young and restless’ India

What Google’s Orkut tells about Gen-YRI

Raj — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:43:10 +0000

“Orkut is the number one web property in India with over 17 million active users that comprise 48 per cent of India’s online population. Therefore it is no surprise when everyone refers to Orkut to comprehend the dominant trends in the Indian way of life,” says Rahul Kulkarni, product manager, Google India in the article titled “Young India says stylish ‘Jai Ho’: Orkut Zeitgeist”. “While different people find different things to do on the web, the list of the top Orkut communities (based on popularity) is the best representation of the unique ways in which Indian users are mining the Internet and social networks,” he concludes.

Google did the survey that looks at how people are using Orkut communities to forge bonds, to express themselves, to come together around causes and topics that excite them or simply to share their creative pursuits with a wider audience.

What did Google find about Gen-YRI? According to Google, young India remains patriotic; being ’stylish’ is a growing priority too! It also said the stock market is growing in appeal for the young traders while football catches up with cricket. And, interestingly, Bollywood seems to be losing to Tollywood. Another aspect is the gender discrimination is weakening as both men and women actively engage in discussions. Everyone loves to ‘chat’ but ‘photo’ sharing and comments are the new fad.

The top advertisers on the website include FMCG, education, telecom and banking and financial services companies, whose target audience is the young population in the country according to Economic Times article reporting on the same survey titled “Fashion Patriotism and Chocolate high on Orkut India“.

Educating Rural Indian Youths

Raj — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:28:49 +0000

Courtesy mckaysavage on flickr

Yahoo India news article titled “Giving young India a foothold into the future”. The leading companies in India have joined hands with the central government to improve the career prospects of bright young people from rural India. In a public-private partnership effort to be shortly announced, foundations run by Wipro chief Azim Premji, Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Group and others corporate chiefs will fund the coaching of school leaving rural youth to prepare them for engineering, medical and other technical entrance examinations.

Around 4,000 youth will be selected every year from a network of 576 schools across the country set up to promote quality education in the rural areas. The government and the private sector may share the cost equally.

This unique public-private model for education is one of the ways India can translate demographic challenge into demographic dividend. Still the number of rural youth wanting to get good education is very large and India needs to move aggressively in tackling this issue.

Young Ministers in Dr. Singh’s Government

Raj — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:57:06 +0000

Latest expansion of ministry by Prime Minister Dr. Singh has several young faces. As many as seven lawmakers below the age of 40 found a place in the council of ministers. Besides Jyotiraditya Scindia and Jitin Prasada, the young ministers include Sachin Pilot, Prateek Prakashbapu Patil, Arun Yadav and Agatha Sangma, who is 28 years old.

“The youth of India, inspired by the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, have voted in large numbers for our party,” Singh said on May 19. “But it is in the nature of youth to be impatient. They will not tolerate ‘business as usual.’ ”

Lessons Learnt from this Election

Raj — Wed, 20 May 2009 01:36:48 +0000

Now that the election results are out, Financial Times opinion at FT.com list the meaning of surprising strong showing by Congress. The article notes 7 lessons that can be learnt from this election results. I will note 3 that are relevant here.

Lesson # 2: Given the fact that 65 per cent of India’s voter base is between the ages of 18 and 35, is indicative of what an ideal political campaign must be. It must feed on issues pertaining to development and progress and not be regressive in its thinking. I believe the logic of aligning youthful idealism with policies and manifestoes is never more critical than it is in today’s times.
Lesson # 5: The nation has moved from regionalism to federalism and this is a tremendous signal of the maturity of the Indian voter. We are now seeing the return of the two major parties: the Congress and the BJP and the demise of regional factionalism and certainly the blackmail opportunities that were effectively the birthmark of these fringe parties.
Lesson # 6: The great divide between Bharat (rural or poor India) and India will remain. But this divide is easily bridged when it comes to voting in a government at the centre. And this time round, we have seen that divide melt because the aspirations of the people remain the same even though the definition ad intensity may vary.

You can read all the lessons learnt in article titled ‘Singh is re-king’.