There is a ‘demographic dividend’ waiting to be exploited by India. By 2020, the median age of the Indian population would be just to 28 years. The country would benefit immensely with many business opportunities coming its way, Union Youth Affairs Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said.
He was speaking at a two-day Youth Leadership Summit organised by St. John’s Public School. VIT University founder and vice-chancellor G. Viswanathan also participated.
“In India, youth in the age group of 15-29 constitute 27.5 per cent of the population. It is expected that by 2020, the median age will be 28 as against 38 years for the United States, 42 years for China and as high as 48 years for Japan. The challenge before the country is to empower its huge youth population to bring about transformational changes to ensure progress, prosperity and peace. This would involve providing the right education, the necessary skills to make them employable, developing them as entrepreneurs, making them healthy individuals, and inculcating the right social and moral values,” he said.
“The Government of India currently invests approximately Rs. 2,710 per young individual per year. However, there is a need for a more focused effort to empower the youth to achieve their potential,” he said.
“We offer the outcome of the summit on youth leadership as the extended curriculum to the students. We would like a finishing school programme for students,” said R. Kishore Kumar, convener of the summit.
The Hindu was the media partner for the event.
