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The Better India - Positive News. Happy Stories. Unsung Heroes.

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Stories that inspire. About lesser-known heroes, pioneers, reformers and trailblazers who are changing India.

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Discovering India Population Density: Interactive Map

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The Population Density map of India shows the distribution of the population based on Kontur Population Dataset.

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indian languages by number of native speakers

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Languages in India - Map, Scheduled Languages, States official languages and dialects

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Find information about Languages in India, Indian Languages Map, and List of Indian Languages by number of native speakers, Indian Scheduled Languages, States official languages, Local languages and dialects.

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Decoding Hinduism With Devdutt Pattanaik | Episode 1: Caste

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India's caste system is among the world's oldest forms of surviving social stratification. The BBC explains its complexities.

The system which divides Hindus into rigid hierarchical groups based on their karma (work) and dharma (the Hindi word for religion, but here it means duty) is generally accepted to be more than 3,000 years old.

How did caste come about?

Manusmriti, widely regarded to be the most important and authoritative book on Hindu law and dating back to at least 1,000 years before Christ was born, "acknowledges and justifies the caste system as the basis of order and regularity of society".

The caste system divides Hindus into four main categories - Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras. Many believe that the groups originated from Brahma, the Hindu God of creation.

At the top of the hierarchy were the Brahmins who were mainly teachers and intellectuals and are believed to have come from Brahma's head. Then came the Kshatriyas, or the warriors and rulers, supposedly from his arms. The third slot went to the Vaishyas, or the traders, who were created from his thighs. At the bottom of the heap were the Shudras, who came from Brahma's feet and did all the menial jobs.

The main castes were further divided into about 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes, each based on their specific occupation.

Outside of this Hindu caste system were the achhoots - the Dalits or the untouchables.

How does caste work?

For centuries, caste has dictated almost every aspect of Hindu religious and social life, with each group occupying a specific place in this complex hierarchy.

Rural communities have long been arranged on the basis of castes - the upper and lower castes almost always lived in segregated colonies, the water wells were not shared, Brahmins would not accept food or drink from the Shudras, and one could marry only within one's caste.

The system bestowed many privileges on the upper castes while sanctioning repression of the lower castes by privileged groups.

Often criticised for being unjust and regressive, it remained virtually unchanged for centuries, trapping people into fixed social orders from which it was impossible to escape.

Despite the obstacles, however, some Dalits and other low-caste Indians, such as BR Ambedkar who authored the Indian constitution, and KR Narayanan who became the nation's first Dalit president, have risen to hold prestigious positions in the country.

Historians, though, say that until the 18th Century, the formal distinctions of caste were of limited importance to Indians, social identities were much more flexible and people could move easily from one caste to another.

New research shows that hard boundaries were set by British colonial rulers who made caste India's defining social feature when they used censuses to simplify the system, primarily to create a single society with a common law that could be easily governed.

Is the system legal?

Independent India's constitution banned discrimination on the basis of caste, and, in an attempt to correct historical injustices and provide a level playing field to the traditionally disadvantaged, the authorities announced quotas in government jobs and educational institutions for scheduled castes and tribes, the lowest in the caste hierarchy, in 1950.

In 1989, quotas were extended to include a grouping called the OBCs (Other Backward Classes) which fall between the traditional upper castes and the lowest.

In recent decades, with the spread of secular education and growing urbanisation, the influence of caste has somewhat declined, especially in cities where different castes live side-by-side and inter-caste marriages are becoming more common.

In certain southern states and in the northern state of Bihar, many people began using just one name after social reform movements. Despite the changes though, caste identities remain strong, and last names are almost always indications of what caste a person belongs to.

What about job quotas?

In recent years, there have been demands from several communities to be recognised as OBCs - in 2016 there were violent protests by the Jat community in Haryana and the Patel community led huge protests in Gujarat in 2015 demanding access to caste quotas.

Both are prosperous and politically dominant communities, but they support their demand for caste quotas by saying large numbers in their communities are poor and suffering.

Some say the caste system would have disappeared by now if the fires were not regularly fanned by politicians.

At elections, many caste groups still vote as a block and are wooed by politicians looking for electoral gains.

As a result, what was originally meant to be a temporary affirmative action plan to improve the lot of the unprivileged groups has now become a vote-grabbing exercise for many politicians.

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India's complex caste system is among the world's oldest forms of surviving social stratification.

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Saumya Khandelwal | Indian Photojournalist

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Saumya Khandelwal | Indian Photojournalist

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Saumya Khandelwal is a contributor for Time Magazine, National Geographic, The New York Times, Washington Post etc. A World Press Photo 6X6 Global Talent nominee from Asia region and Getty Images Instagram Grantee 2017, Khandelwal is based in New Delhi, India.

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Supporters wait for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to arrive at the venue of a Bharatiya Janata Party election campaign rally in Hyderabad, India, on Friday, March 15, 2024 [Mahesh Kumar A/ AP Photo]

New Delhi, India - India, the world's largest democracy, has kicked off its two and a half month long parliamentary election to decide who will rule the South Asian nation.

On Saturday, the Election Commission of India - the country's independent poll-conducting body - announced the dates for a democratic exercise that is unmatched in scale globally, and in history.

From the Himalayas in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south, from the hills of the east to the deserts in the west, and in concrete jungles that are some of the world's biggest cities to the smallest of villages, an estimated 969 million voters are eligible to cast their ballots. They will elect 543 politicians to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. Two other members are nominated, to make up a total strength of 545 in the house.

India's election is colossal, colourful and complex. Here are seven ways in which it is unparalleled in size.

82 days, seven phases

The election process that started on Saturday will continue for 82 days until results are announced on June 4. With the announcement of the schedule, a model code of conduct also kicks in - campaign rules now apply, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is not supposed to announce new policies that could influence voters.

Voting will run in seven phases from April 19 to June 1, said Rajiv Kumar, chief election commissioner of India. The counting of votes will take place on June 4. Assembly elections for the states of Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim will also take place along with the national elections.

After April 19, the other voting dates are April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1. Some states will complete voting on a single day, while others will have voting spread out across several phases.

Over the years, the number of days over which voting has stretched has varied a lot - from the shortest ever four days in 1980 to 39 days in the 2019 election, to 44 days in 2024.

The primary reason for the multiphased election is for the deployment of huge federal security forces required to check everything from polling-related violence or attempts at rigging, according to N Gopalaswami, the former chief election commissioner of India.

Still, staggered polls are no guarantee for free and fair elections as longer campaigning favours the ruling party of the day, said N Bhaskara Rao, chairman of the New Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies, and a pioneer in election research in India. Rao argued that the process should be shortened. The longer the process, the more the opportunity for the ruling party to use government infrastructure to campaign.

969 million voters

The size of India's electorate is more than the population of all the countries of Europe combined.

They will cast their votes through 5.5 million electronic voting machines at 1.05 million polling stations, of which some are located in the snow-clad mountains in the Himalayas, the deserts of Rajasthan and sparsely populated islands in the Indian Ocean.

The Election Commission will deploy about 15 million polling staff and security personnel to conduct the elections. They will trek across glaciers and deserts, ride elephants and camels, and travel by boats and helicopters to ensure every voter can cast their ballot.

A $14.4bn election bill

It is expected to be the world's most expensive election. Spending by political parties and candidates to woo voters will likely cost more than 1.2 trillion rupees ($14.4bn), said Rao, whose organisation regularly estimates the country's poll expenditure.

That would be twice what was spent in India's 2019 elections - 600 billion rupees ($7.2bn). The total spending on the US presidential and congressional races in 2020 was also $14.4bn.

Most of India's election spending is not publicly disclosed. Candidates spend unaccounted money to woo voters. The election scrutiny machinery is weak in detecting cash transactions, said Gopalaswami, referring to attempts by candidates to directly bribe voters with money or other enticements, from alcohol to clothes.

Polling booth at 15,256 feet

Holding elections in the world's seventh largest nation by area is a complex task.

In 2019, election workers travelled 300 miles (482 km) over four days across winding mountain roads and river valleys to set up a polling booth for one voter in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which borders China. Beijing claims a part of the state, and ensuring elections are held there is vital for New Delhi to demonstrate its sovereignty over the region.

Election officials also set up a voting booth at 15,256 feet (4,650 metres) in a village in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, making it the highest polling station in the world. Far off the country's east coast, on the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, workers travelled through crocodile-infested mangrove swamps and dense jungles to reach polling booths.

In Malkangiri district of Odisha, where left-wing Maoist fighters have a presence, polling staff walked 15km (9 miles) through forests and hills to protect electronic voting machines from the rebels after voting. Intelligence agencies had warned them that using cars could have made them easier targets.

"On sheer numbers, it's gigantic and complicated, but in a sense simple also because at each level the law is very clear about what are the duties and responsibilities of each polling official,'' said Gopalaswmi. "Complications are arising as competition is becoming fierce,'' he said, adding, that implementation of the model code of conduct has become increasingly challenging for the election commission.

2,660 parties

In 2019, seven national parties, 43 state parties and 623 unrecognised political parties participated in the elections. Parties that have a significant footprint in a state legislature are recognised as state parties. Those with a meaningful presence in multiple states get the national party tag.

In 2019, 36 parties were able to win one or more seats in the Lok Sabha. In all, about 8,054 candidates, including 3,461 independents, contested those elections. Of the 543 winning candidates, 397 were from national parties, 136 were from state parties, six were from unrecognised parties and four were independent.

A record 612 million people of a 912 million strong electorate cast their votes in the last election, registering the highest ever voter turnout at 67.4 percent. Women's participation also increased to an historic 67.18 percent in 2019.

303 against 52

The principal protagonists of the 2024 battle are Prime Minister Modi and his BJP, who lead a coalition of more than three dozen parties; and the main opposition Congress party-led alliance of about two dozen parties.

In 2019, the BJP secured a landslide victory with 303 seats. Its coalition had a total of 353 seats. The Congress party won got 52 seats, and 91 with partners.

Currently, the BJP is in pole position following recent state victories and is expected to win a majority, according to opinion polls. The BJP alone controls 12 of India's 28 states, while the Congress governs in three states.

Still, Indian political history is littered with instances of parties winning major state elections only to lose the national vote soon after. The BJP knows that better than most: In 2004, its then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee called early elections after winning the key state elections of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh before losing the Lok Sabha vote to a Congress-led coalition.

370 or 404?

Modi has set a target of 370 seats for the BJP, 67 more than in 2019; and for its alliance to cross 400 seats. He is seeking a third term in office.

The last time any party crossed 370 seats was in the 1984 election. The Congress party won 414 seats following the assassination of the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

If Modi wins and completes five years, he will be the third longest serving prime minister in Indian history. The country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru ruled for about 16 years and 9 months consecutively, while his daughter Indira Gandhi governed for a total of about 15 years and 11 months.

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Just how big is India's 2024 election? Find out in seven numbers

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About 969 million people will take part in the giant elections to decide who will rule the world's most populous nation.

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In January, thousands braved the freezing cold at Delhi's Red Fort to hear Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak.
His message was "Viksit Bharat 2047", a promise to make India a developed nation by 2047.

It's the latest catchphrase from a man known for his penchant for catchy taglines.

"Developed India" is an imprecise pledge, but in the 10 years since Mr Modi first stormed to power, he has been trying to lay the foundations for a period of economic boom.

The prime minister and his government inherited an economy that was teetering on the precipice. Growth was slowing and investor confidence was low. A dozen Indian billionaires had gone bankrupt, saddling the country's banks with enormous unpaid loans that had crippled their capacity to lend.

Now, 10 years on, India's growth is outpacing other major economies, its banks are strong, and the government's finances are stable despite a painful pandemic. India surpassed the UK as the fifth largest economy last year and according to analysts at Morgan Stanley, it's on track to overtake Japan and Germany and hit the third spot by 2027.

There is undoubtedly an air of optimism in the country. It successfully hosted the G20, became the first to send a rocket near the Moon's south pole, and has birthed a few dozen unicorns. The soaring stock markets have also had a trickle-down effect on the wealth of its middle class.

On the face of it "Modinomics" - the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s economic vision for India - appears to be working. But dig deeper, and the picture is more complex. For a vast swathe of the country's 1.4 billion people who live on the margins of sustenance, it's not boomtime just as yet.

So who are the winners and losers of Modinomics?

Digital revolution

Mr Modi's push for digital governance has begun to transform the lives of some of the country's poorest people.

Today, Indians in the remotest corners of the country can buy many daily goods without cash, paying as little as 20p for a packet of bread using a QR code on their phone.

Underpinning this digital revolution is a three-layer system of governance, which includes universal identity cards, a payments infrastructure that enables click-of-a-button money transfer, and a data pillar that gives people access to crucial personal documents like tax returns.

Linking hundreds of millions of bank accounts to this "digital stack" has cut red tape and corruption.

Estimates suggest that up to March 2021, an equivalent of about 1.1% of GDP was saved due to digital governance, allowing the government to dole out a volley of social subsidies, cash handouts and also spend on infrastructure building, without running high deficits.

Cranes, cranes everywhere!

Everywhere you go in India there are cranes and JCB machines at work giving its creaky public infrastructure a shiny makeover.

Take a look at this slick first underwater metro in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.

Kolkata: Watch India's first underwater metro

There's no doubt this country is getting a facelift.

Building new roads, airports, ports and metros has been the centrepiece of Mr Modi's economic policy. He spent over $100bn annually in infrastructure spending (capital expenditure) in the past three years.

Nearly 54,000 km (33,554 miles) of national highways were built between 2014 and 2024 - which is twice the length of the preceding 10 years.

The government has also considerably eased up the bureaucracy, which has been a major bugbear of India's economy for decades.

But Mr Modi's policies haven't delivered for all.

The brutal lockdowns imposed during the pandemic, the lingering after-effects of a cash ban in 2016, and faulty implementation of a new goods and services tax - a long pending reform meant to streamline the country's welter of indirect taxes - have had far-reaching structural consequences on India's economy.

Migrant workers were among the worst-affected groups during the Covid-19 lockdowns

The country's vast unorganised sector - small enterprises that form the backbone of this country - are still reeling under the impact of some of these decisions.

And the private sector is not committing big investments. As a proportion of GDP, private investments slumped to barely 19.6% in 2020-21 from a peak of 27.5% in 2007-08.

In January, thousands gathered outside government recruitment centres in the northern city of Lucknow to go to Israel for jobs in the construction industry. My colleague Archana Shukla was on location.

Meet the young Indians applying for jobs in Israel

The desperation of these workers showed India's jobs crisis is real. And it is crushing aspirations everywhere.

"I'm the first master's degree holder in my family," says Rukaiya Bepari, a 23-year-old graduate in the town of Miraj in western India.

"But there's no industry where I live. So I'm now taking tuitions. It doesn't pay much."

Neither Rukaiya nor her brother have had full-time work for the last two years. They're not alone.

The share of educated youths among all unemployed people increased from 54.2% in 2000 to 65.7% in 2022 according to latest figures by the International Labour Organization.

There's also been no significant growth of real wages in India since 2014, according to numbers computed by noted developmental economist Jean Dreze.

India "risks squandering its demographic dividend" - the economic growth potential from a big working-age population - the World Bank's regional economist said in an interview to the Financial Times recently.

Job creation is a problem Mr Modi has been unable to solve.

Right off the back of his victory in 2014, the prime minister launched an ambitious Make In India campaign to turn India into the world's factory. In 2020, his government doled out $25bn in incentives to companies across sectors from semi-conductors to mobile electronics in order to enhance India's manufacturing capabilities.

But success has been elusive.

Yes, the likes of Foxconn - which makes iPhones for Apple - are moving their supply chains to India as part of the global "China plus one" diversification strategy. Other major global giants like Micron and Samsung have also been enthused to invest. But the numbers are not significant yet.

Manufacturing's share as a percentage of GDP has remained stagnant in the last decade despite these efforts.

Growth in exports was also faster under Mr Modi's predecessors.

"Even if India's manufacturing grows 8% per year till 2050 and China's stagnates at the 2022 level, India's manufacturing size in 2050 will still not match that of China's in 2022," says Prof Vidya Mahambare of the Great Lakes Institute of Management.

Lack of a large scale industry means half of India's population still depends on agriculture for their livelihoods - which is increasingly becoming unprofitable.

Two speed recovery

A direct impact of this? Squeezed household budgets.

At 3%, the growth in overall private consumption expenditure - the money people spend on buying things - is the slowest in 20 years.

And household debt has touched an all-time high, even as financial savings plunged to their lowest levels, according to new research.

Many economists argue that the nature of India's economic growth post pandemic has been uneven, or "K-shaped" - where the rich have thrived, while the poor continue to struggle. India may be the fifth largest global economy at an aggregate level, but on a per person basis, it still languishes at the 140th rank.

And inequality has widened to a hundred-year high according to research from the World Inequality Database. No surprises then that election campaign discourse recently has been rife with chatter around wealth redistribution and inheritance taxes.

Luxury brands making cars, watches and liquor have been growing faster than India's more mass-market companies, according to Arnab Mitra, who researches Indian consumer brands at Goldman Sachs.

Viral Acharya, a professor at NYU Stern, says a handful of the biggest conglomerates have grown "at the expense of the smallest firms".

The super-rich, he says, have benefited from sharp tax cuts and a conscious policy of creating "national champions" in which prized public assets like ports and airports have been preferentially given to a few companies to build or run.

Latest court revelations show many of them have also been India's top political donors to the ruling BJP.

Popstar Rihanna (third from left) performed at the Ambani wedding party

India's decade?

All combined, this presents an inconsistent picture of India's economy. But for all its problems, the country is on the runway for take-off, say experts.

"India's next decade could resemble China's path (of hyper growth) from 2007 through 2012," analysts from Morgan Stanley wrote in a widely discussed paper.

They add that the country has many advantages - a young demographic, the geopolitics of global de-risking from China and a clean-up of sectors like real estate. Other megatrends like digitalisation, a transition to clean energy and growth in global offshoring will propel future growth, say experts.

The infra push is also something that will have long-term payoffs. By making improvements in roads, power supply and turnaround time at ports - India is finally "creating an environment in which manufacturing can flourish", says DK Joshi, CRISIL's India economist.

India surpassed UK to become the fifth-biggest economy last year

But along with the focus on "physical capital", Mr Modi needs to pay heed to creating "human capital", says Dr Raghuram Rajan, the former governor of India's central bank.

Indian children aren't learning as well as they should to face up to the world of artificial intelligence. A quarter of those aged 14 to 18 can't read simple text fluently, according to a report published by the non-profit Pratham Foundation.

Covid-19 dealt a major blow to students, who couldn't attend school for nearly two years. But the government has continued to underfund education, and healthcare.

In its first decade, Modinomics appears to have delivered for a select few. But for many the jar, as it appears, is still half empty.

"We will grow old before we grow rich" if growth isn't faster and more equitable, says Dr Rajan.

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India's economy: The good, bad and ugly in six charts

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India has one of the world's fastest growing economies but the benefits are yet to fully reach the poorest.

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5 Biggest Environmental Issues in India in 2023 | Earth.Org

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Top environmental issues in India: 1. Air Pollution; 2. Water Pollution; 3. Food and water shortages; 4. Waste management; 5. Biodiversity loss.

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Climate Crisis Compounds Gig Work’s Unsustainable Nature

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In a profession replete with labour rights violations and precarious working conditions, climatic extremes make it ever so dangerous for gig workers to ride along.

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India's gig economy riders risk their lives to deliver food - BBC News

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MUMBAI, INDIA - OCTOBER 22: Executive chair at the South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Group Euisun ... More
Anadolu via Getty Images

India, for the first time, has surpassed China to become Asia's top market for initial public offerings (IPOs). Yet behind the celebratory headlines-like those in the Financial Times-lies a deeper narrative of ambition, growth and an urgent question: Can the country's higher education system sustain this momentum?

From a strategic perspective, this question isn't just about volume but about the system's capacity to align educational outcomes with national economic imperatives.

Challenges Facing India Higher Education and Economic Growth

As billions of dollars flooded into Indian equities, carried by the optimism of investors betting on everything from tech unicorns to manufacturing hubs, another pressing question loomed: Who will drive this growth in the next two decades? Will India's universities, colleges and research institutions be ready to meet the demand for skilled talent, innovation and intellectual leadership?

Understanding this readiness requires a closer look at the state of India's higher education system-its scale, structural challenges, and potential for reform.

On paper, the nation's higher education system looks formidable. With over 56,000 institutions catering to nearly 40 million students and supported by 1.5 million faculty members, it stands as one of the largest education ecosystems in the world. Over the past decade, the sector has witnessed a huge increase in institutions-from 600 universities in 2012 to nearly 1,150 today. Privately managed institutions, now forming 40% of the total, dominate the landscape. At the same time, student enrollment grew by nearly 16% in just five years.

But size tells only part of the story. Beneath the surface lies a paradox. While the sector has grown in scale, quality remains uneven and research output lags behind global standards-an issue highlighted in analyses by EY and The MIT Press.

Bridging Talent Gaps for India Higher Education and Economic Growth

Even India's premier institutions-the IITs and IIMs-grapple with faculty shortages, infrastructure deficits and bureaucratic inertia. Faculty vacancies stand at 40% in IITs and 31% in IIMs, highlighting a chronic gap in attracting and retaining top academic talent. These are not numbers to glance over-they are the seams holding together an educational fabric that risks unraveling under pressure.

The stakes are high. India's demographic dividend-a young, growing workforce-could turn into a demographic liability if the education system fails to deliver. With projections estimating that India needs to add 26 million higher education enrollments by 2035 to meet the National Education Policy's (NEP 2020) target of 50% Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER), the clock is ticking.

"Higher education in India is at a pivotal stage", said Vijay Pereira in an interview with me. The newly appointed senior professor, associate dean, and director of KEDGE India at KEDGE Business School, Paris, explained that on one hand, there's an undeniable growth story, but on the other, there are structural gaps in quality, equity, and research focus that need immediate attention. Consequently, India's education landscape requires significant alignment with global trends, particularly in fostering partnerships that bridge academic theory and industry practice.

These gaps in talent supply and institutional capacity become even more apparent when examined alongside India's recent economic performance.

Research and Innovation in India Higher Education and Economic Growth

India's dominance in IPO fundraising in 2024 wasn't a fluke. It resulted from years of economic recalibration, tech sector maturation and a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem. Companies like Swiggy, Zomato and Ola Cabs have grown into household names in India and globally. Hyundai Motor's substantial listing in India further underscored the country's increasing importance in global equity markets.

But behind these glittering financial victories lies a less-talked-about concern: talent. As industries scale, they need leaders, engineers, researchers and strategists. The Indian economy, now the world's fifth-largest, cannot rely on a handful of elite institutions like the IITs and IIMs to churn out the workforce of the future. It requires systemic reform-an overhaul of teaching practices, research funding and industry alignment across thousands of smaller institutions. This imbalance between institutional capacity and industry demands underscores the urgent need for scalable, inclusive solutions in higher education.

Consider the digital transformation wave. While urban universities have integrated hybrid learning models and AI tools into their curricula, smaller and rural institutions remain constrained by outdated teaching methods, poor infrastructure and limited digital access. Less than 1% of Indian colleges are registered with the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) system, designed to allow students to transfer credits between institutions. This lack of adoption restricts mobility and flexibility for students, reinforcing systemic inequalities and limiting access to modern academic opportunities.

Digital Transformation in India Higher Education and Economic Growth

India allocates just 0.69% of its GDP to research and innovation-a stark contrast to countries like South Korea (4.2%) and Israel (4.3%). This limited investment translates into a glaring disparity in research capacity. According to 2023 data, South Korea leads with 7,498 researchers per million people, followed by Japan (5,304), the United Kingdom (4,341), and the United States (4,245). In comparison, India has just 255 researchers per million-a figure that underscores the scale of the challenge.

Pereira, the president-elect of the Indian Academy of Management, explained to me that without significant investment in research infrastructure, faculty development, and policy frameworks supporting long-term research goals, India risks falling behind in both global competitiveness and innovation leadership.

International collaborations are often presented as a solution to bridge this gap, offering Indian institutions opportunities to elevate their research capabilities and align with global standards. However, such partnerships remain limited. Fewer than 10% of India's 1,043 universities and just 1% of its 42,343 colleges actively engage in internationalization efforts. Among them, approximately 230 universities meet the criteria to offer twinning, dual, or joint degree programs. Despite government initiatives, inconsistent policies, structural barriers, and limited institutional capacity continue to hinder widespread adoption.

There are, however, promising exceptions. Partnerships such as Cranfield University with Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), the University of Liverpool with IIT Palakkad, and Vijaybhoomi University with KEDGE Business School demonstrate the potential of international collaborations to drive academic excellence, research innovation, and cross-cultural expertise. Yet these remain isolated examples, largely confined to elite institutions.

For internationalization to become a sector-wide catalyst rather than an exclusive privilege, India must address systemic barriers. Streamlined regulations, financial incentives, and capacity-building initiatives will be critical in empowering smaller institutions to participate meaningfully in global networks.

The Future of India Higher Education and Economic Growth

India's higher education sector stands at a strategic inflection point. While its growth in scale and ambition is undeniable, systemic weaknesses in research, talent development and institutional alignment remain significant hurdles.

Addressing these challenges requires a strategy informed by established theories. Porter's Competitive Advantage highlights the need for institutions to build on unique strengths. The resource-based view (RBV) underscores the importance of developing inimitable assets-faculty expertise, cutting-edge research infrastructure and robust governance. Dynamic capabilities theory stresses agility and adaptability, enabling institutions to respond swiftly to trends like digital education, AI adoption and sustainability imperatives.

In essence, India's educational strategy must evolve in lockstep with its economic ambitions to ensure sustainable growth and global competitiveness. After all, the nation's success depends not just on policy intent but on execution that aligns vision, resources and institutional culture with innovation, agility and long-term strategic clarity.

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India's Economic Growth Depends On Fixing Higher Education

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India's higher education system must address research, talent, and digital gaps to align with the country's economic ambitions and secure global competitiveness.

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some images may be upsetting to see

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India’s Muslims continue to face discrimination and hate following Modi’s election win

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi secured a third term, but his party lost its majority in parliament. Modi portrays himself as a strong leader of a rising nation, but his ten years in office have been marked by a fierce crackdown on dissent and India’s ethnic and religious minorities. Zeba Warsi reports with support from the Unity Productions Foundation.

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How casteism operates in Modern India | Beena Pallical | TEDxSurat

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How a landmark caste census in India threatens Modi’s grip on power | Features | Al Jazeera

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Photo Essay: The Many Faces of Learning (SSIR)

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India has the most youth of any country, and one of the most diverse, making education one of its biggest challenges.

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Bollywood’s ‘tidal change’: The influence of India’s far-right on the world’s largest film industry | CNN

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Saudi Aramco World : Bollywood’s Global Faces

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Eighteen Kent State students and their two professors, Gary Hanson and Mitch McKenney, spent nine days in Noida, near Delhi, in India’s Uttar Pradesh, in March 2012 to produce this multimedia collection of news and feature stories. Their hosts at Amity University provided student-partners who served as guides, collaborators and translators.

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How Education Enforces Caste Differences

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How Education Enforces Caste Differences

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In January, Hardik Pandya's misogyny and male privilege on Koffee with Karan led to widespread outrage on social media. While the outrage was warranted, many of the comments made about the issue point us towards another kind of privilege that we urgently need to start talking about: class privilege. An overwhelmingly large number of people used words such as sadak chaap, uneducated, level, and aukaat to say 'Look, he may be rich, but he's still one of them.' A quick search on Facebook for "Hardik Pandya, Koffee With Karan," will lead you to several comments dating from the time of that incident, which range from "He looks like an auto driver" to "This is a reflection of his lack of education, and low upbringing." Pandya's misogyny was believed to be a direct result of where he stood in the socio-economic order. Ironically, fierce individuals - believing themselves to be true feminists and social justice warriors fighting for a group's right to be treated with respect and dignity - flaunted their class privilege in order to call out Pandya's gender privilege. The question we need to be asking, though, is - did these commenters even realize their hypocrisy, and the privilege behind it?

Think back to the time spent in school. Did anyone ever broach the subject of one's own class privilege?

A safe answer to that question is no. Students from the middle- and upper-classes, usually studying in private schools and taught by teachers from similar socio-economic backgrounds, are rarely made to think about their role in perpetuating inequity. Think about it: While learning about the caste system that plagues many parts of our country, were class-based differences and their prevalence in cities associated with the concept? While teaching that a lack of education perpetuates bias and discrimination, did the teacher speak about how privilege might be perpetuated by the education itself? When being prodded to think of solutions, was introspection about one's own privilege a part of the conversation?

Recognizing our privilege

Privilege is defined as holding historical, social and institutional power. This means that the privileged, for generations, develop, work and live within structures that are designed to favor and reaffirm them. How does this happen? Dr. Diane J. Goodman, in Promoting Diversity and Social Justice: Educating People from Privileged Groups, lays out a few characteristics of privileged groups: Since privileged groups occupy most positions of power, their characteristics become the cultural and social norm. Take, for example, how individuals are judged on their diction when speaking in English. Since most individuals belonging to upper classes speak English in a certain way, anyone who does not match the 'expected standard' is seen as inferior. The characteristics of the privileged, reinforced by better education opportunities, define normalcy and become the reference points against which others are judged.Those characteristics, apart from being the norm, are also viewed as 'better.'
Related on The Swaddle: How Caste Has Always Shaped Desire, Desirability
Again, think about a phrase that's often used in Indian society: 'They're from a good family.' This is almost always used to indicate that the family is educated and of a particular stature, implying that families with individuals who may be uneducated and belong to a lower class are not 'good' families. This sense of superiority, says Goodman, gets transferred from privileged groups to the individuals themselves - so much so that the same trait gets tagged differently within different groups: an upper-class member advocating for themselves to get a raise is someone who values their worth, while a domestic worker negotiating for a higher wage is greedy. Lastly, since they occupy positions of power and dictate the norms of society, "the privileged group creates systems and structures that reflect its values, embodies its characteristics, and advances its interests," Goodman writes.This cultural and institutional dominance ensures that individuals from privileged groups are never required to think about the advantages society affords them. Every aspect of their lives is seen as the norm, while other people's conditions are seen as the exception. This allows them to believe that everything they achieve, they achieve due to their own merit.

The children of the privileged, through abundant educational resources and opportunities, go on to assume powerful positions, never having examined the systems that give them their privilege, thus upholding the status quo. In the social sector, this presents itself in the form of organizations that claim to fight for the oppressed, but never think to make the oppressed a part of the decision-making. Many educators in the social sector preach hard work and grit, but fail to acknowledge the fact that their students will struggle to find acceptance, no matter how educated they are, until they look and sound like the privileged too. Instead of being given tools to navigate and dismantle this systemic oppression, students are taught how to speak English the way their upper-class educators do and are lent dreams that fit the privileged idea of a successful life. This puts the onus on the oppressed to conform, and relieves the privileged of their responsibility to reevaluate. An example of this in policy is the new amendment to the Right To Education Act: It scrapped the No Detention Policy that mandated students be promoted to the next class, but be given adequate support to reach the required learning level. As a result, the policy puts the onus on children in government schools to receive a good education and relieves the state of its responsibility to provide a good education.

Another policy example that points us towards class privilege is the widely debated 10% reservation for economically weaker sections, which instills quotas in jobs and educational institutes for families with an income below Rs. 8 lakh a year, or who own fewer than five acres of agricultural land. The bill was seen by many as a move to appease the upper classes; but why did they need to be appeased in the first place? Students and families belonging to general categories often lament about the 'reservation scam' in our country. They pick up singular cases of individuals who belong to Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes, but are financially well-off, to talk about how unfair the system is for those who belong to the general category. They believe that affirmative action gives others an unfair advantage, and that belief often makes individuals belonging to SCs, STs and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) vulnerable in institutions and workplaces. For example, two-thirds of the difference in employment rates between SCs and upper castes was due to discrimination against SCs in the hiring process, according to a joint paper published in 2018 in the Journal for Social Inclusion Studies, the Hindustan Times reported.

Dismantling privilege through education

This is not to say that interventions targeted at oppressed groups should not exist - they absolutely must. However, as mentioned by Anand Giridharadas in his book Winners Take All, equity demands that the privileged not just give back, but also begin to give up. They must start facing their privilege, and find ways to break down the systems that create an unfair power dynamic. Katy Swalwell, in Educating Activist Allies: Social Justice Pedagogy with the Suburban and Urban Elite, mentions that an important strategy in interrupting injustice is ensuring that students from privileged communities are "exposed to a critical examination of society and engaged to orient themselves towards justice." Instead of spending time telling the privileged what the oppressed don't have, we need to spend time getting them to reflect on why the privileged have what they already do.
Related on The Swaddle: The Importance of Inclusive Education for All Kids
However, our education system fails miserably in this regard. Our schools continue to be segregated on the basis of class, with recognized private schools catering to the well-to-do, and government schools catering to those who cannot afford to pay for an education, much like many school systems in the U.S. continue to be effectively, if no longer legally, segregated on the basis of race. Our private schools enable students to maintain their blind spots by never having to confront their privilege or examine their biases. We are raising children who understand poverty as a problem they do not contribute to, and who attribute the failure of a system to those oppressed by that system, or by parties separate to themselves. Since their norms are established as superior, these children also grow up seeing no benefit in interacting with those who belong to 'inferior' social groups, thus maintaining the hierarchical structure. That is how privilege thrives: through ignorance.

The ' Happiness Curriculum,' a curriculum that focuses on mindfulness and holistic education implemented by the Delhi government, aptly recognizes that a school's responsibility is not restricted to content knowledge. If we truly want to strive for education equity, schools catering to privileged groups must be mandated to teach their students about privilege and subconscious discrimination. We need to raise citizens who are as angry when they hear the word ganwaar used as an insult, as they are when they hear the word gay or slut being used in the same vein. We need to teach them how to question their worldviews and the systems within which they exist - why they demand certain conditions for themselves, but deny them to others. We need to teach them to question how their everyday lives help uphold this toxic power dynamic, and what they can do to change it, so that they hold within themselves an obligation to work towards justice. Only then can we talk about equity.

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How the Indian Education System Reinforces Caste, Class Differences

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"We are raising children who understand poverty as a problem they do not contribute to."

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Worshipped by a billion Hindus and a water source for 400 million, the government is battling to save "Mother Ganga".