Best of BS Opinion: Building stronger foundations for durable growth

Durable growth depends not just on expansion but on stronger foundations across telecom, education, energy, skilling and institutions

Expansion is easy to see. Tariffs rise, schools multiply, renewable capacity grows, skilling programmes are announced, and political careers acquire the force of personality. But systems do not endure on visible expansion alone. They need foundations: Affordable access, teaching capacity, grid reliability, learning that fits real lives, and organisation that works beneath the surface.

 

Our first editorial today, “Increasing telecom tariffs”, looks at India’s telecom sector as operators prepare for possible tariff increases. After years of low prices and heavy investment, especially in 5G, AI, rural connectivity and network expansion, the industry needs stronger revenue per user. Tariff rationalisation may be necessary if operators are to sustain quality and invest in new technologies. But the editorial also warns that the sector cannot forget basic-service customers. India still has many users who need affordable voice and data access. The challenge is to balance investment and inclusion so that the next phase of telecom growth does not leave lower-paying users behind.

 

The second editorial, “Fixing the foundations”, turns our attention to education. A parliamentary committee has flagged teacher shortages, absenteeism, weak infrastructure, uneven monitoring and poor learning outcomes. These are not peripheral concerns. They go to the heart of whether schooling can deliver anything meaningful. Digital tools, new schemes and expanded commitments will matter only if the basics work: Enough trained teachers, functional classrooms, adequate toilets, reliable monitoring, and stronger community involvement. Education reform cannot begin at the top of the pyramid; it has to begin where children actually learn.

 

Arunabha Ghosh and Disha Agarwal’s column, “India needs a grid revolution”, looks at energy. India’s renewable-energy expansion is impressive, but adding capacity is not enough. The next challenge lies in the less visible architecture of power: Transmission, storage, forecasting, market design, flexible demand, and grid management. Solar panels and wind turbines may be the public face of clean energy, but reliability will depend on whether the system can move, store and balance power efficiently. The focus must shift from just capacity addition to the infrastructure that makes clean power usable.

 

Rama Bijapurkar’s column, “Reimagining skilling, not reengineering”, questions the factory-style language used for skilling. People are not machines to be reengineered. Their learning is shaped by aspiration, mobility, family constraints, work experience and local opportunity. India needs skilling systems that are continuous, practical and rooted in how people actually build livelihoods. The goal should not be to produce standardised workers for an imagined economy, but to help people adapt across changing forms of work.

 

“‘D K Shi’ in his political labyrinth”, Vikram Gopal’s review of Rasheed Kidwai’s D K Shivakumar: Congress’s Crisis Manager, Karnataka’s Kingmaker, extends the theme to politics. Shivakumar’s career is not just a story of ambition or personality but reflects networks, organisation, crisis management, loyalty, resource mobilisation and the harder mechanics of electoral politics.

 

Growth, these pieces show, becomes durable only when the foundations are strong enough to carry it.