Mint | India's employment challenge: 20 million jobs need to be created each year

A number of analysts attribute the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) underperformance in the general election to voter unhappiness with the Narendra Modi government over unemployment, job reservations and farmer livelihoods. 

The Agnipath scheme of military recruitment came in for criticism during the election campaign and many political commentators expect that the new government will be compelled to make changes to it. We should view interpretations of election results with some scepticism, but it does appear that the issue of inadequate employment opportunities has bubbled up to the surface of our political ocean.

Read the full article here.

Indian Express | Agnipath 2.0: A solution for armed forces and applicants

The future of the Agnipath scheme is a pressing concern for the new government at the Centre. The narrative that this scheme dampened the NDA’s prospects gained momentum during the election campaign. The spokesperson of the JD(U), a key NDA partner, has publicly stated that the scheme upset some sections and needs to be modified. Despite these political rumblings, there is a noticeable lack of specific alternatives to address the original problems that led to the crafting of the Agnipath scheme. This article proposes an “inverse induction model” as a solution to make Agnipath 2.0 meet its operational, political, and fiscal objectives. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | Even if Agnipath is scrapped, India needs tough reforms to cut ballooning defence pensions

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s letter to President Droupadi Murmu on the “discriminatory” Agnipath scheme shows its importance in this Lok Sabha election. The BJP government introduced the scheme in 2022, where soldiers enrolled for four years are christened as Agniveers. Political parties across the spectrum have held differing postures on the scheme.

The Congress’ election manifesto stated that the party would “abolish the Agnipath programme and direct the Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard) to resume normal recruitment to achieve the full sanctioned strength”. The BJP manifesto, on the other hand, maintains that the four-year enlistment programme will benefit a large section of the young and employable population. It has also stated that it is open to changes in the scheme after a review conducted by the Services. In the psychological framework of the electoral campaign, the issue is dovetailed within the larger issue of significant unemployment at the national level. Read the full article here.

Create a Nitipath for the civil service

At the heart of the Indian republic’s inability to deliver basic public services to its citizens is its chronic inability to address the shortfall in administrative capacity. In the past two decades, political leaders and policy analysts have chosen to side-step the complex problem of administrative reform and instead, used innovative methods like privatisation, public-private partnerships and technology to deliver public services. At the same time, philanthropy, corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have stepped in to provide a variety of public services — schooling, healthcare, nutrition, skill development and social security — that the state ought to have provided, but is unable to.

Whatever Happens with Agnipath Scheme, it Offers 3 Real Lessons for Future Reform

Even as the Agnipath scheme continues to face challenges on multiple fronts, let’s take a step back and ask: what are some lessons for public policy from this saga? Lack of data, institutional gaps and ill-timed reforms will continue to pose hurdles for policy initiatives in India.

Agnipath is directed correctly. But Modi govt needs Amit Shah to budge

Seldom does a scheme with a fanciful name live up to its name and that too with such devastating fidelity as Agnipath. It has delivered on its name almost instantaneously by lighting fires across India. The inflamed passions of the unemployed found expression and targeted the Narendra Modi government’s defence reform that was officially touted to provide an opportunity to the youth to serve the nation.

Rough Calculations on Agnipath’s Pension-Saving Potential show why the Change is Crucial

GoI’s official arguments for Agnipath don’t emphasise public finance implications of the policy. Although the media has discussed the unsustainability of the military pension status quo, the official press release said that the only motivation for the scheme is “attracting young talent from the society who are more in tune with contemporary technological trends and plough back skilled, disciplined and motivated manpower into the society”. But skirting fiscal reasons may have created an impression, at the popular level, that GoI needlessly foisted another disruptive scheme on unsuspecting masses. The reality is quite different.

Agnipath, a chance to transform India’s defense management

Now that India’s government has chosen the four-year tour of duty model as the way to respond to its budget constraint, the policy challenge is to ensure that it achieves the desired objectives, mitigates the downsides and pre-empts unintended consequences. Essentially, it is about understanding who might join the armed forces given these employment conditions, and how this new demographic will change the defence services and Indian society at large.

‘Agnipath’ scheme for military has good intentions. But Modi govt should conduct trials first

From the ongoing Ukraine war, some reminders are knocking on the doors of India’s statecraft and in particular, its defence reforms. Admittedly, the context of the war is different, and therefore, extrapolation would be an erroneous approach. However, since all wars imply the use of violence for political purposes, there is some scope that reveals lessons to inform the trajectory of India’s military reforms. For sure, in the course of time, the Ukraine war will be studied both globally and in India. We examine two issues relevant to the Indian context and immaterial to the future course of the Ukraine war — displacement of the civilian population and the management of military manpower. An examination of both these aspects would provide some useful insights into shaping and wielding India’s military power.