Best of BS Opinion: India needs outcome-linked policy measures for jobs | Opinion Specials

Hello, and welcome to the Best of BS Opinion, our wrap of the day’s Opinion page. India’s skilling challenge cannot be separated from the scarcity and quality of employment, points out our first editorial. A new NITI Aayog report highlights the scale of the mismatch, with 87 million young people outside education, employment or training and only 8.25 per cent of graduates working in jobs aligned with their qualifications. Meanwhile, NSO data reveal a contraction in unincorporated-sector establishments and employment, particularly in rural areas. The editorial cautions that rising self-employment may reflect inadequate wage opportunities rather than entrepreneurship. It advocates shifting skilling towards verified employment and wage outcomes, expanding apprenticeships and workplace exposure, aligning training with local demand, and offering flexible, affordable programmes. The proposed exemption from mandatory Bureau of Indian Standards certification for high-tech equipment and components is a welcome response to foreign investors’ concerns, argues today’s second editorial. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal’s announcement follows complaints from Japanese semiconductor and AI companies, but also raises questions about the durability of regulatory reform. The editorial highlights the rapid expansion of quality control orders, from 70 in 2016 to 790 in 2025, which can restrict imports and manufacturing and act as non-tariff barriers. Although the government has withdrawn some orders and introduced risk-based compliance, these measures remain conditional. Broader, unconditional deregulation is needed to strengthen India’s investment climate and ease business. The NITI Aayog’s report on skilling identifies a serious mismatch between education and employment, with only 8.5 per cent of educated youth working in fields aligned with their qualifications and 87 million young Indians classified as NEET, notes Kavita Rao. While she welcomes the report’s emphasis on outcome-linked skilling, better guidance and employer inputs, Rao argues that supply-side reforms alone cannot address India’s employment challenge. Rapid automation limits the job-creating potential of existing growth patterns, requiring policies that stimulate new products, markets and formal services, alongside stronger consumption among lower-income households. She concludes that policymakers must combine better skills with measures that generate productive employment at scale. The acquisition of successful D2C brands by large consumer companies has become commonplace, but Colgate-Palmolive India’s latest arrangement with Bombay Shaving Company represents a more radical shift, notes Shailesh Dobhal. Rather than acquiring the brand, Colgate-Palmolive has handed Bombay Shaving its Palmolive D2C and ecommerce operations, acknowledging that the smaller company is better equipped to manage these channels. Dobhal contrasts this with established outsourcing models in manufacturing and acqui-hiring, arguing that the deal is unusual because it transfers a core marketing function to an external specialist. While the arrangement’s commercial terms remain unclear, he suggests that if Palmolive succeeds, it could encourage companies to rethink their core capabilities and corporate hierarchies. Amar Farooqui’s Governors of Empire: The East India Company’s Chief Functionaries in India challenges the notion that British rule in India followed an inevitable path, Amritesh Mukherjee writes. Tracing the East India Company’s governors-general over two and a half centuries, Farooqui portrays them as officials whose ultimate loyalties and ambitions remained rooted in Britain, despite their power in India. Mukherjee highlights the book’s debunking of enduring myths surrounding Robert Clive and the Thuggee cult, while examining how colonial administrators imposed rigid religious and legal categories and suppressed competing narratives, including those surrounding the 1857 revolt. The review concludes that Farooqui reveals an empire shaped by contingency, prejudice and men already halfway home.