I want to focus on two elements that, in my view, deserve the most urgent and persistent attention if we are not to see the much hyped-up demographic dividend transform into a demographic nightmare as the numbers of rising unemployed youth swell the ranks of militant organizations that peddle either bogus religious fundamentalism or defunct left wing extremist ideology. The rise of extremist ideologies and movements in India is a real danger that any incoming government will be well advised to take seriously.

It must be recognized that the central focus of government policy should be to sustain high economic growth of not less than 8% for the next two decades. All political parties and economic pundits can hopefully converge on this one central policy objective.

It is probably not worth debating any longer that rapid growth is the necessary condition for lifting people out of unacceptable poverty and for meeting the rising aspirations of our young population.

Let us also agree that achieving rapid and sustained growth, whilst being necessary, is not a sufficient condition for reducing poverty and certainly not for addressing rising inequities in the country. But it is important for us to build a nationwide consensus on achieving high rates of economic growth as that alone can ensure that we achieve any of our desired and stated objectives.

The second element is to qualitatively improve the delivery of public goods and services starting with law and order. It is time that all of us firmly reject, forever, the nonsensical notion that ‘the ‘Indian economy can grow despite the government.’ This is even sillier than believing that the Indian economy is decoupled from the global economy.

The other crucial aspect of is the delivery of public education. It is in a shambles. There is as yet no consensus on how to improve this. Installing video cameras to record teachers’ attendance and performance may produce good results in laboratory-like situations but can this possibly be implemented on the scale required? And are we sure that a way around it will not be found by those who have no stake in the success of the system.

Education vouchers will empower the beneficiaries, provide the needed competition to government schools which currently have a local monopoly and cut at the very root of the ‘private tuition industry’ that is full of unwanted practices. Education vouchers should be launched as soon as possible.

The third priority must be to rejuvenate Indian agriculture and ensure that 4% growth is sustained over the next decade with further diversification and productivity improvement. For this we need to tackle the constraints that agriculture is faced with today. Raising yields and productivity in agriculture is essential for achieving inclusive growth.

The incoming government should come out with a White Paper that evaluates the success of the several measures taken in the last five years and spells out others required to address the binding constraints. This should be done within the first 100 days. After country wide consultations, it should be converted into an action plan and implemented in a mission mode.

It is time to recognize that the woes of our small and marginal farmers have very little to do with the WTO negotiations on agriculture and a lot to do with outdated and dysfunctional policies that are still prevalent in this sector.