Tabernacle of Sincerity and Discipline
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Come 15th September, the entire engineering fraternity gets into a triumphant mood as a tribute to Sir MV, a visionary, a technocrat par excellence, an economist, a reformist, an educationist and above all, a human being with an impeccable integrity. His entire life was a teaching, a tabernacle of sincerity and discipline. To this great son of India, Built Expressions, bows in admiration and as a mark of respect recalls a few of his projects dedicated to the Indian subcontinent spanning Pre-Independence to Post-Independence era. |
This year also coincides with the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda reminding his immortal teachings and eternal belief in the power of youth resonating with the changing times of India. To both these great men, harnessing the youth power is an inevitable necessity to build strong India and it would be appropriate for me to focus on youth issues in this editorial in the wake of India lying on the cusp of a demographic transition.
By 2025, India is expected to be the 4th largest economy in the world, after the United States, China and Japan contributing about 5.5%-6% to the world GDP. While most of these countries shall be riddled with an ageing workforce, India will offer a great opportunity in the form of a demographic dividend. The population of India is expected to exceed 1.3 billion by 2020 with a median age of 28 years, which is significantly less than the expected average ages of China and Japan. The working population of India, is expected to increase to 592 million by 2020, next only to China (776 million), pointing to the fact that youth will make a significant contribution to the economic development of the country, provided the youth energy is harnessed strategically.
It is estimated that 27.5% of the population is in the age group of 15-29 years and 34% of the India’s Gross National Income is contributed by this age group. As per the National youth policy document-“The Government of India (GoI) currently invests more than Rs 90,000 Crores per annum on youth development programmes or approximately Rs 2,710 per young individual per year, through youth-targeted (higher education, skill development, healthcare etc.) and non-targeted (food subsidies, employment etc.) programmes. In addition, the State Governments and a number of other stakeholders are also working to support youth development and to enable productive youth participation. However, individual organisations in non-Government sector are small and fragmented, and there is little coordination between the various stakeholders working on youth issues.” The GOI has identified 11 priority areas of action which shall help leveraging the youth development.
While the above proactive and progressive initiatives form the optimistic facet of our industry, lack of nationalism, petty politics, corruption, nepotism, bureaucracy form the ugly, inefficient facet. The recent apocalyptic calamities starting from Uttarakhand to the inundation of Kashmir Valley reflect and expose our unpreparedness. We may speak of training the youth for tomorrow but what about today! Lack of attitude to learn from failures, lack of attention to advanced fields like Risk management, Disaster management goes unnoticed till we face another such eventuality. But what is the solution? The answer probably lies in the first paragraph. Until and unless every individual realizes his responsibility, his commitment to the society with an impeccable integrity, we have a bleak future.
This issue of Built Expressions comes to you with a feast of articles including Japan’s engineering marvel project G-Cans, Tokyo, to encounter the flood situation, the sinking city of Mexico, urban housing challenges, embodied energy benefits and many more. This issue of Built Expressions also includes a special guest editorial under an exclusive column “Wisdom Space” penned by Dr. C S Viswanatha.