India election 2019: millions of Indian youth are underemployed and going to the polls

Indian general elections begin April 11. vepar5/shutterstock Here’s an astonishingly large number. Around 900 million Indians are heading to the polls to decide if they want to reelect the current government of Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). India Tomorrow is a seven-part podcast series by The Anthill (produced by The Conversation UK), exploring some of the major issues facing India – identity politics, the rise of Hindu nationalism, Kashmir, the role of caste and gender in shaping Indian society, and how women and young people experience these phenomena. Part one, an episode on India’s information wars and how fake news fuels violence , launched on April 9. You can sign up to The Anthill newsletter to stay up to date and send questions via podcast@theconversation.com or via Twitter @AnthillPod . The producers will be putting your questions to academics. Read more: Why Australia should engage with the unemployment crisis affecting Indian youth Today on Trust Me, I’m An Expert, we’re hearing from an academic featured on India Tomorrow . Craig Jeffrey is the director and CEO of the Australia India Institute and Professor of Development Geography at the University of Melbourne. He explains what issues are front of mind for India’s millions of first-time voters delivering their verdict on the performance of the BJP government, led by Narendra Modi. “Two things are really crucial. One is jobs. Young people across India and particularly in parts of India where the economy’s been less successful at creating jobs - so some of the northern states, for example, are going to be really concerned with the capacity of the government to provide better employment opportunities,” Professor Jeffrey told The Conversation’s editorial intern Bageshri Savyasachi. “The second issue, I think, that they’ll be very concerned about is education. So they’ll be looking to see which political parties and politicians are promising to improve higher education […] Because for a lot of young people who aren’t part of the elite in India, there is a mismatch, often, between the educational opportunities they obtain in school or university and then the employment markets and the demands of key private sector firms.” “A third area that’s perhaps less obvious is the issue of health care and public health. And my own observations, as an anthropologist and human geographer working in mainly Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand over the past 25 years on social change, is that young people are often demanding access to health services that are poorly provisioned in provincial India, particularly in relation to issues like sexual health, mental health, reproductive health and that’s an area where I think young people are looking to government for more action.” Join us as Professor Jeffrey explains what implications this enormous election will have for the world’s second most populous nation, and for the rest of the globe as well. Read more: India Tomorrow: a podcast series from The Anthill – episode guide New to podcasts? Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and

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India election 2019: millions of Indian youth are underemployed and going to the polls is an episode from Trust Me, I'm An Expert by The Conversation.

This episode is 28:07 long.

This episode was published on May 6, 2019.

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