The millions that matter.

Economist Ruchir Sharma ranks 50 emerging and frontier economies. India's score is somewhere in the middle and his favorite line is, "India is a country that consistently disappoints the optimist and the pessimist." ET. According to the M3M Hurun India Rich List 2026, India "has created more than two new billionaires a month for three years running." "According to the list, the combined wealth of the people featured in the rich list stood at Rs 187.5 trillion or $1.96 trillion, which is more than the GDP of countries like Turkiye ($1.64 trillion), Switzerland ($1.15 trillion) and Singapore ($0.66 trillion) among others." However, "To put it in perspective, according to the IMF, India's GDP per capita is $2,813, compared with Singapore's $1,07,760." Mint. "In nearly 250 districts, more than 25% youth (15-29 age group) are neither engaged in any productive work, nor are they pursuing education or any sort of training for work, highlighting a gap in human capital utilisation." "A recent Niti Aayog report pegged the number of NEET (not in employment, education or training) youth in the country at nearly 90 million." TOI. In addition to the chronically unemployed, "Thousands of jobs have been cut across India's global capability center (GCC) ecosystem this year as parent companies push for AI-led efficiencies and tighter workforce structures, even as their Indian units take on bigger technology and product mandates." GCCs employ around 2.4-2.5 million people in more than 2,100 centers. MC. "In India, approximately 8 to 15 million students graduate each year. Yet only 8.5% find jobs that match their qualifications and skills." "It is difficult to ignore the paradox: millions spend years pursuing higher education, but only a fraction eventually enter professions connected to what they studied." ET. "The engineering talent market faces a growing mismatch between candidate supply and hiring demand, with entry level job seekers accounting for 45% of the pool against the requirement of just 28%, a report said." ET. "India requires Rs 168-172 trillion of infrastructure investment through FY31, with Rs 70-80 trillion yet to translate into announced project pipeline, according to a joint report by the National Bank of Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG)." ET. Although 70% of India's electricity comes from coal, "A decade ago India's installed renewable energy capacity was barely 4GW. It now makes up 300GW or 54% of its total 552GW installed capacity - a target that has been achieved five years ahead of schedule." Perhaps too fast because "a bulk of the clean energy that was produced in India was wasted because the country's transmission lines have been dogged by missed targets, with one out of four inter-state projects facing delays of over a year." BBC. "India needs nothing short of 12 million new non-farm jobs annually." "Recent National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, including its 2024 report, show that (i) unemployed persons form a large category among suicide victims; (ii) student suicides have risen; and (iii) a substantial share of suicide victims were Class 10, Class 12 and higher education students," wrote Prof Santosh Mehrotra & Jajati Parida. Billionaires are fine. What about the millions?