The nation’s youth are being talked about in circles of both the informed and the uninformed with diverse outlook and understanding. They account for half the land’s total population yearning for a livelihood. The steadily growing mass of graduates that are coming out of Universities across the country with hopes of making it in life but not landing jobs, preferably in one or the other department of government, if not one or the other corporate, has been unsettling the powers-that-be with no signs of the grim situation easing in foreseeable future. While the IT sector provided timely relief to both the administration and the youth  with the required competence, opportunities for jobs witnessing unprecedented in both numbers and pay packet, since mid-1990s, the happy times seem to be not sustaining currently. The educated youth, although  seen in industry circles as not-yet-job-ready, cannot be let down if, as a distinct category in the nation’s population, they are not heading to be wasted human resources of the nation.

Urban space is fast becoming unlivable even as rural youth, particularly the unskilled section, are trooping in hoping to bat on greener turf, only to find their urban counterpart bogged down in spite of their street-smart image. Turning the rural youth back to the fields for pursuing agriculture sounds like a pipe dream, particularly because farming is no longer perceived as a rewarding avocation.

The consequences of allowing the numbers of unskilled and unemployed  youth to expand exponentially in both urban and rural India are as clear as daylight, the more clear fallout being the youth taking to wayward life marked by criminal acts of murder, robbery, rape,  fraud and not to forget, latching on to politicians of all hues, notably the despicable flock among them. Society should be grateful to individuals, institutions, and voluntary groups that are doing their bit in bringing the misdirected back on track, even if their combined efforts are far short of the humongous dimension of the task of harnessing human resources.

The law-keeping wing of the government, it must be remarked without casting aspersions on the functionaries, is on the job of nabbing the offending youth, but that amounts to closing the stable after the horses have fled. The citizenry owe it to the country and to themselves by being proactive in keeping vigil on gangs enlisting juveniles as foot soldiers to carry out criminal acts, even as the land’s politicos are spoiling the broth as it were.