August 10, 2026

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THE BIG CHALLENGES AHEAD

At 10.40 on the morning of July 27, when Dharmendra Pradhan arrived at Parliament, MPs from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) gathered to receive him. They walked the former Union education minister in, chanting `Dharmendra Pradhan zindabad', and put a Maithili cap and a shawl on a man who had resigned 48 hours earlier under pressure from the street.It was the kind of welcome a leader gets on his return from a win. But this was more a show for the BJP cadre than for the Opposition. Having a minister step down in the face of a major agitation is a situation the ruling BJP has never faced since 2014 when Narendra Modi led the party to a famous Lok Sabha victory. The rank and file, likely feeling let down when the prime minister asked Pradhan to resign as education minister, had to be assuaged--just as much as Gen Z had to be calmed after the widespread outrage over lapses in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET). The only comparable retreat was the withdrawal of the farm laws in November 2021, but that was after a year of sustained protests.In addition to Pradhan's resignation, Modi passed a tough new law for exam malpractices in Parliament and also set up a high-level task force headed by Nandan Nilekani, the IT czar and architect of the Aadhaar project, to recommend reforms in examinations conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), including NEET. But NEET is just one crisis for Modi. Looming ahead are several other formidable challenges in politics, the economy and governance--not least the task of rescuing the party image from the ignominy of the recent theft of donations at the Ram temple in Ayodhya, culminating in the resignation of two prominent trustees. 1. WINNING BACK GEN Z What must be troubling the prime minister is not that the NEET agitation exploded, but that he could not talk it down himself. No politician in India has worked harder at this constituency: Pariksha Pe Charcha every examination season, the appearances with sportspersons, the videos of a 75-year-old playing e-sports, the studied openness to new technology. But when Gen Z anger erupted over the lack of accountability in the NEET leaks and cancellation, it cut at the very core of his credibility. Modi expects the announcement of the Nilekani-led task force to go a long way to assuage Gen Z's feelings. The proposed technology-led overhaul, the prime minister has assured the youth, will make the examination system trusted, transparent and error-proof while changing the structure of the agency that runs it. The task force includes former ISRO chairman S. Somanath, former Intelligence Bureau director Tapan Deka, IIT Madras director V. Kamakoti, former education secretary Anita Karwal and

THE AFFORDABLE HOME SHORTFALL

Padmashree Vinod, 48, a schoolteacher who moved from Thrissur to Mumbai in 1998, spent nearly two decades in a modest chawl at Kajupada near Andheri before shifting to a rented flat in Kurla. She had hoped to buy a home of her own within a couple of years and began looking for a one-bedroom flat. The cheapest option within Mumbai, however, cost Rs 1.2 crore. She expanded her search to Navi Mumbai, where Maharashtra government town planner Cidco was developing low-cost housing in Taloja, Dronagiri, Kharghar and Kalamboli. Even those were beyond her reach. "After reviewing the location, the size and the price, we found that the end-cost was as high as what some private developers were offering," she says. "The word `affordable' is just a façade." Millions across urban India, like Padmasree, dream of owning a home but are priced out. They are left with few choices: remain in rented chawls or ageing buildings with poor infrastructure and few amenities, or move to the city outskirts and endure long commutes. According to real estate consultancy Knight Frank, urban India faces a shortage of nearly 10 million affordable homes--priced up to Rs 45 lakh, with a carpet area of up to 60 sq. m in metros and 90 sq. m in non-metros, as defined by the government. And the gap is only widening.Despite the pressing need, affordable housing remains a story of poor planning and policy apathy. Even flagship government schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U), aimed at expanding access to affordable homes, have fallen well short of meeting rising demand. World Bank