Youth, energy, and direction

We are a country of more than a billion people, with a large share under thirty. That fact is repeated so often that it becomes noise, but the implication is sharp. The heavy lifting of the next decades will be done by people who are today young. If their attention and energy go primarily into directions that do not build capability, demography becomes a story we tell ourselves rather than an advantage we use.

I have been trying to do a few things in our local region, and I can see how much smoother the path would be if more youth attraction could be created toward a useful direction. Social media and other distractions are not a side theme; they shape what young people practise for hours a day.

At the same time, some people leaving the country should not freeze a nation of this size. We should have been able to groom far more talent than we have. The focus that follows is not complicated: education, training, and skilling, pursued with seriousness rather than with announcements.

School years are for skill as well as certificates. Structure helps most learners more than pure freedom. Immediate results, quick money, and fame methods crowd out long paths. In that environment, a capable next generation is not automatic. It is the only serious guarantee of future prosperity, and it has to be built on purpose.

Drawn from writing on X as devendrasm on youth, demography, skill, and distraction.