What to Read in Indian Express Editorial( Topic and Syllabus wise)

EDITORIAL 1: The creativity curriculum

Context

India’s creative economy is projected to reach $80 billion by 2026, according to a report published recently.

Creative Economy

• “Creative Economy” is not just a smart phrase but holds the potential for building creative-cultural assets. It can operate as a strategic lever of inclusive growth.
• Education and entrepreneurship together present India’s development frontier with strong, inclusive opportunities.
• The question, therefore, arises: How quickly can our institutions prepare young minds with the skills and confidence to help them participate in the creative economy?

A Study

• A recent survey-backed report states that only 9 per cent of students across 22 states demonstrate strong readiness in design thinking, research and real-world problem-solving.
• These are 21st-century skills and core competencies of the creative economy. In a world where AI can code but not create, these gaps matter.
• The NEP 2020 calls for embedding 21st-century skills— critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication — into the curriculum.
• But we must go further. With the CBSE now mandating art-integrated learning from Grades I–X,and the Rs 400 crore Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) launching in Mumbai, the blueprint is emerging.

Cannot be part-time

• Creativity cannot be part-time, and in that sense, it cannot be extracurricular.It is time to mainstream creative entrepreneurial mindset training — through maker spaces, startup labs, and design sprints.
• Let creativity be assessed not just in art rooms, but in business models, digital portfolios and social impact.
• The Report also highlights how international boards such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) are more successful in developing core competencies of the creative economyin school students compared to Indian boards.

Creative force in India

• India’s creative force is exploding — not just in metros, but in village courtyards, small-town lanes, and local community centres.
• With affordable tech and deep cultural roots, over 100 million Indians — farmers, weavers and local experts — have become digital creators.
• The creator economy has now surpassed the $500 million mark, powered not by polished panache but by raw authenticity.
• Its revolutionary power shatters barriers: In Rajasthan, women resurrect and champion vanishing oral histories through vibrant smartphone films.
• In Bihar, Bhojpuri creators fill the education gaps left by traditional systems.
• Vernacular creative surge reshaping how India speaks, learns and leads in the recent launch of India’s first public streaming platform, WAVES OTT, owned by Prasar Bharati. WAVES OTT.

Public streaming platforms

• In today’s India, the most powerful public messaging isn’t top-down; it’s created, uploaded, and amplified from the ground up. 
• WAVES is not a passive pipeline of content; it is a democratic bridge.
• It confers institutional legitimacy on creators emerging from villages and towns and provides them with an equal opportunity to stream their content.
• In classrooms across India, teachers are turning into creators, and students into solopreneurs. Our policy must now respond with speed and scale.
• The transformation won’t happen in silos. Ministries like MoE, MSDE and I&B must converge— blending skilling with storytelling, curriculum with creator capital.
• In a Viksit Bharat, literacy isn’t just about reading and writing — it’s about creating, pitching, and publishing.
• In communities where institutions are slow or absent, creators are stepping in — bridging information gaps, shifting norms and activating public awareness in real time.
• In Odisha, tribal teenagers use Odiya rap videos to teach climate-resilient farming — reaching over 5,00,000 farmers, where traditional extension systems have fallen short (UNICEF, 2024).
• In Kerala, ASHA workers produce short-form health content in Malayalam, doubling engagement on TB awareness compared to state-led clinic outreach.
• Vernacular influencers, across platforms, have driven more than 70 million views on subjects like menstrual health, child nutrition, and vaccinations — topics too often left out of mainstream media.

Conclusion

In a world shaped by algorithms, India’s currency is creativity — and its potential is limitless. Let’s build an India where every child is a creator, and every creator is a force for economic, cultural, and social transformation.

 

EDITORIAL 2: Carry it forward

Context

Now that the India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) has been sealed, the focus shifts to the more challenging deal with the US.

The trade pact

• India-UK trade pact is marked by a confident approach of export proactiveness rather than import defensiveness.
• A major stumbling block to inking even an interim free trade agreement before US President Donald Trump’s August 1 deadline — to either sign or face so-called reciprocal tariffs of up to 26 per cent — is agriculture.
• India does not want to open up its market for American soyabean, corn (maize), ethanol and dairy products.
• What this defensive stance misses is the potential loss from the fact that India’s agricultural exports to the US, at $6.2 billion in 2024, exceeded its imports of $2.4 billion.
• A 26 per cent tariff will definitely hurt Indian seafood exports to the US that alone was valued at $2.5 billion. That loss would be a gain for the likes of Ecuador and Chile, slapped with only the 10 per cent baseline tariff.

The fear

• On the other hand, the fear of US farm imports is more about perception than reality.
• Take dairy, where the US isn’t as big an exporter of milk powder, butter and cheese as New Zealand and the European Union.
• Or soyabean, where India imported over $5 billion worth of its oil during 2024-25. The bulk of that was from Argentina and Brazil, with the US share at just $126.3 million.
• The US is, no doubt, cost competitive in corn and the world’s biggest producer as well as exporter.
• But corn is basically a feed grain, also increasingly being used as a biofuel feedstock. Allowing imports would benefit India’s dairy and poultry farmers grappling with rising feed costs, aggravated by the diversion of corn for fuel ethanol production.
• The sheer demand growth makes corn imports by India inevitable, whether from the US or elsewhere.

Suggestions

• India needs a farm trade policy based not on import protection,but expanding and diversifying its exports.
• That happened during 2003-04 to 2013-14, when the country’s agriculture exports soared from $7.5 billion to $43.3 billion and new markets were created in products from basmati rice and buffalo meat to frozen shrimps, guar gum meal, chilly and seed spices.
• Even worse have been shipment curbs — on rice, wheat, sugar or onion — clamped at the slightest indication of domestic supply shortfalls.
• CETA has been a refreshing departure, with India successfully negotiating duty-free access for its exports of seafood, processed foods, spices, fruit and vegetables to the UK, while simultaneously offering to cut tariffs on imports of whisky, chocolates, soft drinks and salmon from the latter.

Way forward

A similar confident approach of export proactiveness rather than import defensiveness is required in deals with other countries — the US included.