The manifestos of major political parties announced recently are bristling with promises for the youth. For good reason. As India votes to elect a new Lok Sabha beginning April 19, that demographic will be represented by a mammoth swathe of 210 million youth aged between 18 and 29, constituting 22 per cent of the total electorate—a size that beats Russia in terms of population and is big enough to form the eighth-largest country in the world. Among them will be 18.4 million first-time voters. With a much higher degree of youth investment in politics than ever before, they have emerged as a decisive component of the Indian electorate. A
