Times of Better Bharat

The operation

The Reserve Bank of India's open market sale of Government of India securities on 13 October accepted ₹25,000 crore at face value — the full aggregate amount notified — with settlement on 14 October. Cut-off yields ran from 7.1428% on the 7.88% GS 2030 to 7.3947% on the 7.18% GS 2033, an upward-sloping curve. The largest single acceptance was ₹9,415 crore of the 7.18% GS 2033, followed by ₹8,430 crore of the 6.10% GS 2031 and ₹2,820 crore of the 7.88% GS 2030. The release shows no accepted amount and no cut-off against the 7.10% GS 2034, the longest-dated security in the basket.

An open market sale withdraws liquidity from the banking system. A second such operation follows: an overnight Variable Rate Reverse Repo auction under the Liquidity Adjustment Facility is scheduled for 14 October.

States borrow in the same session

On the same day the RBI auctioned state government securities: ₹1,000 crore of Assam paper maturing in 2037; ₹1,000 crore of a re-issue of 7.71% Bihar SGS 2044 first issued on 22 July 2026; ₹2,000 crore of a re-issue of 7.76% Bihar SGS 2051 first issued on 2 September 2026; and ₹600 crore of a re-issue of 7.40% Chhattisgarh SGS 2035.

Centre and states borrow against a common stock. The IMF puts general government gross debt at 83.4% of GDP in 2026 on its definition, which covers the Centre and the states together and is the basis of its debt-sustainability analysis — down from a peak near 89% in 2020. That figure is contested, and the qualifier belongs in the same breath as the number: the Union Budget's central-government figure is about 55.6% of GDP for FY2026-27. The two are not contradictory. They cover different entities, and quoting either as "India's debt" without saying which is the error. The World Bank/IMF series for central government debt, at 46.5% of GDP, is from 2018.

Tax revenue, the base that services all of it, was 6.9% of GDP in 2022 on World Bank data.

Who sets the path

The borrowing calendar is set by the RBI in consultation with the government; the fiscal path by the Finance Ministry. Nothing in Tuesday's auctions changes the arithmetic, it prices it. A cut-off of 7.3947% on long-dated money is the market's reading of that arithmetic.

The meeting

India hosted the first BIMSTEC home ministers' meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday, chaired by Home Minister Amit Shah, according to a government release. Interior ministers of the Bay of Bengal grouping have not met in this format before; such agendas typically cover counter-terrorism, border management, cybercrime and organised crime.

The network behind it

On the Lowy Institute's Global Diplomacy Index — the 2024 release, with data collected between July and November 2023 and filed by the interactive site under 2023 — India ranked 11th of 66, with 194 diplomatic posts, one place higher than in 2021. A methodology change travels with that comparison: consulates in the same city as an embassy are no longer counted separately, which lowered some countries' post totals relative to 2021. India is also the third-largest contributor of uniformed personnel to UN peacekeeping, with 4,278 troops, staff officers, military experts on mission and police as of 28 February 2026, up one place from December 2025 and drawn from a field of 120 contributors. Both figures describe capacity to operate abroad.

The counterweight

They sit against two indices that measure risk at home. The Institute for Economics & Peace's Global Peace Index 2026 places India 127th of 163, with a score of 2.41 on a 1–5 scale where lower is more peaceful — a fall of 12 places on 2025. Its Global Terrorism Index 2026 ranks India 13th of 163, at 6.43 on a 0–10 scale where a higher score means a greater impact of terrorism; the edition records a one-place change from 2025. A regional security forum is the right room for those numbers, because the drivers — cross-border movement, financing, organised crime — do not stop at borders.

What would change it

Regional cooperation of the kind BIMSTEC offers is decided by member governments collectively; domestic security outcomes by the Union Home Ministry and state police forces. The diplomacy index and the peace index are not the same measurement, and a rise in one says nothing about the other. Tuesday's meeting adds a channel. What it delivers is a separate question, and the next edition of each index will answer part of it.

The milestone

The PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan completed five years, the government said on Tuesday in a release marking the anniversary. Its stated purpose is to coordinate infrastructure across ministries and states so that projects are planned against one map rather than in sequence.

What the logistics data shows

India ranked 38th of 139 countries on the World Bank's Logistics Performance Index in 2023, up six places from 44th in 2018 and sixteen from 54th in 2014. The components are uneven: 22nd on international shipments, 47th on infrastructure, 48th on logistics competence. The stated target is a top-25 place by 2030. One caveat travels with the headline: a later methodology change means the index no longer ranks countries on a single overall score, so the 38th place may not be directly comparable with earlier editions.

The wider numbers: an investment rate of 34.6% of GDP in 2025; a rail network of 68,102.73 route-km in 2021; liner shipping connectivity of 58.89, against a maximum of 100 set in 2004, also 2021. Access to electricity reached 99.9% of the population in 2024. Safely managed sanitation covered 62.8% and safely managed drinking water 76.4% in the same year.

The gap the anniversary does not close

Road accident deaths stand at 1,83,434 a year, the highest absolute total recorded by any country and roughly 11% of the global figure, ahead of China and the United States. Deaths rose 25.5% from 1,46,133 in 2015, while reported crashes rose only 2.4% — crashes have become markedly deadlier rather than more frequent. The ministry also recorded 4,80,583 accidents and 4,62,825 persons injured in 2023.

Who can change it

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways publishes these figures and sets vehicle and road-safety standards; enforcement of speed, lane and helmet rules rests with state transport and police authorities. The distance between 22nd place on international shipments and first place in the world for absolute road deaths is the distance between building infrastructure and governing its use. One is a capital problem and is being addressed; the other is an enforcement problem and is not.

The conference

The Central Electricity Authority held a brainstorming conference on making India's electricity sector AI-enabled, according to a government release. The framing is not unusual — demand forecasting, outage detection and renewable integration are the standard use cases — but the scores India brings to it are mixed, and several of the newer ones are weaker than the older ones.

The power side

Electricity use per person was 1,423 kWh in 2025. Renewables supplied 24.1% of generation and solar alone produced 196 TWh, both for 2025. On the World Economic Forum's Energy Transition Index 2026, India ranked 70th of 120 with a score of 54.9, up one place. Read that cautiously: the 2026 edition replaced the SAIDI/SAIFI reliability indicators and added new ones, 44 in total, and WEF describes India as advancing two places against a restated 2025 rank — not against the 71st it published in 2025. A ranking built on changed indicators is not the same measurement taken twice.

The AI side

On the Global AI Index published on 4 December 2025 — the sixth edition, with twelve countries added and indicators reweighted — India ranked 17th of 93 with a score of 21, where the top-scoring country scores 100. That is down seven places on 2024. The Government AI Readiness Index 2025 is kinder: 27th of 195, score 66.55, up nineteen places, on a new six-pillar framework. That one carries a correction with it. The first release, in December 2025, printed India 21st on incorrect data; Oxford Insights issued corrected scores and rankings in January 2026 and re-issued the report in May 2026.

The physical layer

An AI-enabled grid runs on connectivity and trained people. Fixed broadband reached 3.2 subscriptions per 100 people in 2024, and 70% of the population used the internet in 2025. Mobile data was the seventh cheapest of 237 markets at US$0.16 per gigabyte in 2023, the latest edition of that survey. Mobile internet speed ranked 32nd of 102 at 128.2 Mbps, down seven places on a year earlier. Research and development spending was 0.6% of GDP in 2020, with 259.3 researchers per million people.

Who holds the levers

The CEA is the technical authority; the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology would share the policy ones. Cheap data is not the binding constraint. Sustained research spending and grid-grade fixed connectivity are.

The extension

Registration for India Skills 2026–27 has been reopened until 19 October 2026, after what the government described as overwhelming demand from candidates. The competition is the national selection route into international skills contests, and the extension is a logistical step rather than a policy one. It does point at a labour market whose shape is well measured and slow to change.

Where participation stands

Unemployment was 4.2% of the labour force in 2025 on World Bank/ILO data. The labour-force participation rate was 55.7% of the population aged 15 and over. Split by sex, the divergence is the story: 32.4% of women aged 15 and over were in the labour force. A skills pipeline that adds certified workers without adding women to the workforce leaves a large share of the potential labour supply untouched, and the headline participation rate conceals that.

The pipeline behind the pipeline

Higher-education enrolment was 34.4% gross in 2025. Learning poverty — the share of ten-year-olds unable to read and understand a simple text — stood at 56.1% in 2017, the latest World Bank/UNESCO figure. The Human Capital Index, measuring the productivity a child born today can expect relative to full education and health, was 0.49 on a 0–1 scale in 2020. Adults averaged 7.8 years of schooling; a child starting now can expect 12.95 years. Government spending on education was 4.1% of GDP in 2022.

Two structural constraints on women's participation sit upstream of any skilling programme: 22.3% of women aged 20–24 were married before 18, on 2021 data, and India scores 0.403 on the UNDP's Gender Inequality Index for 2023, where 0 is full equality. On the World Bank's Women, Business and the Law index, India scored 74.38 of 100 in 2023.

Who holds the levers

Skill development sits with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship; school and higher education with the Ministry of Education; the legal and social constraints on women's paid work largely with state governments and Parliament. Certification is the part the skills ministry controls directly, and it is the part that has been expanded. The binding constraint lies outside its remit.

The review

The Union agriculture minister and the environment minister reviewed parali, or crop-residue, management jointly on Tuesday, according to a government release. It is a seasonal item and a persistent one: the burning window runs through the post-monsoon weeks in the north-west, and the two ministries that met hold the levers on residue policy and air-quality regulation respectively.

Where the air stands

IQAir's eighth World Air Quality Report, for 2025, ranked India sixth of 143 countries on population-weighted PM2.5, at 48.9 µg/m³ — close to ten times the WHO guideline of 5 µg/m³. That is an improvement on 2024, when India ranked fifth at 50.6. Delhi remains the world's most polluted capital at 82.2 µg/m³, itself a three-year low. Sixth of 143 is not a good number; it is a slightly better one than last year's. Both statements are true.

The contested score

Yale's Environmental Performance Index for 2026 placed India 176th of 177, with a score of 22.46, ahead only of Laos. That figure is contested, and India's Environment Ministry has rejected the index's methodology before — it rejected the 2022 edition outright as methodologically unsound. Yale cites air quality, coal dependence and weak biodiversity protection. The trajectory is not uniform: India ranked 141st in 2016, and its ten-year change in score is positive at +7.47 even as its rank has fallen.

The other half of the ledger

India emitted 2.17 tonnes of CO₂ per person in 2024, 3,153.83 million tonnes in total. Forest cover was 24.4% of land area in 2024, against tree-cover loss of 1,25,678 hectares per year on the same series. Water stress stood at 66.5% of available freshwater withdrawn in 2022.

What would change it

Residue burning falls when there is a paying alternative to burning — baling, collection, use as fuel or fodder — and when enforcement is credible. The two ministries that met on Tuesday control the subsidy and regulatory sides of that; state governments control enforcement on the ground. The post-monsoon weeks will show whether this year's coordination differs in outcome from last year's.