Among other economic challenges facing India, none is more strategic than the sheer productivity divide, within its very own workforce. Even as the government is pointing to the high rate of employment generation, it has been the aspiration of the country to emerge at a scale of a $36 trillion economy by 2047 and the only way forward to meet that is bridging this widening gap between the formal and the informal sectors.

Some part of the 3.5 million voters who were purged in the recent date in Bihar are migrants. Declared as having permanently migrated because they have not been found in a house-to-house verification exercise, they now face disenfranchisement in large numbers. This step which is part of the 2025 Special Intensive Revision (SIR) reveals a flaw inherent in the Indian election process to include the large migrant population in its tally, which can bring into question the democratic rights of an important layer of the Bihar populace.

Followed by the alleged massive harassment and detention of Bengali speaking migrant labourers elsewhere, West Bengal CM announced Shramashree scheme. The Project aims to quickly move individuals back to their home state by providing financial and community support to the individual upon return.

All this notwithstanding national initiatives such as the POSHAN Abhiyaan to reduce stunting by two percentage points annually, progress is at a notoriously lethargic pace. The latest statistics document that 37 percent of children below the age of five are stunted compared to 38.4 percent in the previous year. This highlights the existence of deep systemic flaws in dealing with child malnutrition.

In August 2025, Mumbai faced the worst floods in 4 days as over 800mm of floodwater rained down on the cityf- worthy of the monthly average. The deluge out wreaked killing more than 10 lakh acres of farmland and 15 deaths even in the state of Maharashtra. This event is another warning of the growing vulnerability of megacities to climate extremes and the need to boost resilience