Lutyen’s Delhi is a world apart. Its celebrated bureaucrats and policy formulators with the power to shape the destinies of entire generations — and compliant academics — have little awareness of the grassroots infirmities of the Indian economy. The third Kautilya Conclave was organised by the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG), a Delhi-based think-tank established by the indefatigable academic-bureaucrat N.K. Singh, who has arguably the longest service record in top-level Union government positions.

The conclave was graced by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Prime Minister Modi (both opined that the ‘Indian Era’ of global domination is around the corner) and discussed and debated the entire gamut of issues covering sustainable economic growth, managing inflation, financing the green transition, geo-economic fragmentation, artificial intelligence, public and foreign policy, rural regeneration. With keynote speakers, panel chairs and speakers invited (all expenses paid by the Union finance ministry) from blue-chip universities worldwide, the conclave was undoubtedly a festival of the intellect providing a banquet for thought.

However in the opinion of your editor, a ‘direct payment’ invitee, although an optional panel discussion on health and education reforms was scheduled, the learned delegates showed little awareness of the “centrality of education” and human resource development. Your editor’s anguished pleas that substantially bigger budgets for public education are the essential pre-condition of dawn of the Indian Era were cut short with remarks such as “input doesn’t guarantee outcomes” and “the priority is expenditure efficiency,” by grey eminences who themselves reported impressive academic credentials from the world’s most well-furbished universities. It was also humbling that that none of the delegates had heard of this tiny organ published south of the Vindhiyas, despite our undisputed claim of being India’s #1 education magazine.

This consensus left your correspondent bemused about how such great minds can entertain this pipe-dream of a globally respected economy in which over 50 percent of teens can’t read class III textbooks and only 2 percent of industrial workers have received formal skills training. Indigestible banquet.