A.R.Bhat
“The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow”
-Nelson Mandela
The intelligence of people of a country affects it’s importance on a global front. Youth are considered to be the voice of a nation. They are like raw material or resources to a nation, which when empowered, can prove to be the greatest wealth and strength of any country.
Youth is the most important and dynamic segment of any society. They are associated with freshness, vigour, sport and energy. Creativity can be found if we look through the minds of youth as their thoughts have not yet been molded into the prejudiced ideas and beliefs of a society. The power of youth can be felt only by mentioning a few names of the youth icons which every Indian is proud of, such as, Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Sachin Tendulkar, Vishwanathan Anand, Milkha Singh, Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, PT Usha, Kapil Dev, Kalpana Chawla etc. These individuals made focused efforts to achieve their goals and have set examples for the youth to emulate. Youth are always ready to take calculative risks to achieve their aim and their hard work, honesty, energy and motivation can prove to be the best ingredients for a successful nation.
The youth of a nation brims with untapped potential which can be utilised to bring about major changes and transformations in a country’s overall development. Our late President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in his book, “India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium” shared his vision about how India can be among the world’s top four powers by the year 2020. Few countries in the world possess the “youth power” like ours, with almost half of the Indian population below the age of 28 years, whose immense energy can be channelised into multifarious spheres of nation building. Diverse opportunities and empowering youth procedures must be adopted, to enable the youth in orienting their efforts and careers towards various streams & fields of their interest. The only way to enlighten them is to allot duties in conjunction with their potential and they will invariably become participants of the nation building.
For ensuring that our youth become the leaders of tomorrow, they need to be provided with good health, skill training and first class education. The economic trigger happens when a country has more hands to work than more mouths to feed. To put it concisely, working age population has to be larger than dependent population. Presently, India is one of the youngest nations with average age of about 28 years, in contrast with 40 years of USA, 46 years of Europe and 47 years of Japan. We have an edge over the rest in terms of the global demographic dividend. Our nation faces the challenges of poverty, malnutrition, corruption, violence and unemployment and the same needs to be addressed urgently. The power to do so lies in the hands of our dynamic youth. They possess the ability to trigger a permanent positive change and influence the greater section of the society thereby making growth a norm.
The state of J&K has suffered immensely under the shadow of the gun for almost the past three decades. Violence and the need for survival have affected the mental ability of the youth to contemplate better employment opportunities and prospects of a happier life. It is to the credit of the Indian Army that in the most challenging times; it understood the need of keeping the youth engaged positively thereby enabling them to aspire for a better future. The government has effectively followed up these efforts and has continued to generate new vistas of employment and enhanced economic activity. This has been executed through various initiatives such as the Industrial Development Plan for the UT, which aims at providing employment to about 4.5 lakh people. Areas addressed are horticulture, fisheries, animal husbandry and dairy farming under the said plan. Such initiatives must invariably continue because youth engagement is an imperative for positive societal change.
Youth is the basic driving force of a country, especially in a country like ours, where majority of population comprises of the youth. The involvement of youth towards the developmental processes is a must. We can undoubtedly say that today’s young are tomorrow’s innovators, creators, builders and leaders, provided they are nurtured, guided and inspired. At the same time youth needs to understand their roles and the responsibilities in making of a country. The perseverance, fervor to work hard and the innovative quest of knowledge followed by curiosity is something what will make them stand out of the crowd.
