October 29, 2026Column
India cannot achieve mass prosperity without making farming pay better
In 50% of India's districts, almost 50% of workers still farm, and good jobs outside farming are few.
Read →Insights
Insights
Interactive analyses, notes and columns on youth opportunity, state development, and what the data makes visible.
October 18, 2026Column
We Are Thinking About Youth Unemployment The Wrong Way
India's employment crisis is not about making young people more employable. It is about creating an economy that can employ them at decent wages.
Read →October 16, 2026Column
India's manufacturing workforce is mostly not in factories
Two in three of India's 5.25 crore manufacturing workers work outside factories, most in units of five people or fewer that produce a fraction of what factories do.
Read →October 10, 2026Note
Why Is Graduate Unemployment 17% in Tamil Nadu and 33% in Telangana?
An analysis of graduate unemployment in 31 states and Union Territories
Read →October 9, 2026Column
Did Liberalisation Open Up Work for India's Women?
Between 2004-05 and 2017-18 the share of Indian women in work fell by almost half. Most of the return since then is women over 30, and most of it is farm work.
Read →October 2, 2026Column
IT Sector Helped Build the Indian Middle Class. For Its Workers, It Is Starting to Sputter.
Software exports have doubled since 2017-18. Since 2023-24, jobs, pay and labour's share of the value the sector adds have fallen.
Read →September 26, 2026Column
Who is middle class in India, and why do they feel squeezed?
Only 6.6% of Indian workers earn a middle-class salary and the salary buys less than it once did.
Read →September 23, 2026Column
Andhra Pradesh: unemployment is 3% among the school educated and 41% among graduates
Findings from the Andhra Pradesh Handbook of Youth Opportunity, which scores all 26 districts of the state.
Read →September 12, 2026Interactive analysis
The uneven landscape of graduate unemployment across Indian states
Unemployment among young graduates is more than double the rate for young people as a whole. Explore how education, employment and pay vary across states.
Explore →September 11, 2026Column
Rajasthan youth eager to work, but 39% of working youth in unpaid work
Findings from the Rajasthan Handbook of Youth Opportunity, which scores all 41 districts of the state.
Read →August 25, 2026Column
How the economy's shape changed
85% of India's workers are in sectors where the median pay is ₹15,000 a month or less. Growth did not create better jobs.
Read →August 14, 2026Column
The fraying promise of post-liberalisation India
We made good jobs synonymous with college degrees, but degrees are delivering neither jobs nor better pay.
Read →June 21, 2026Note
The Politics of “Data”
The same number can mean opposite things in two districts. Its meaning is local, and reading it well is what representation is for.
Read →February 19, 2026Column
What can an MP or MLA do for youth? A lot, actually.
A shared minimum civic guarantee for youth at the district level — and the local levers every elected representative already holds to meet it.
Read →February 15, 2025Column
Most Indians live in the district where they were born
India can't rely on aggregate state and national numbers — we have to make every single district work.
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