Since Independence, successive Indian governments have had to address a number of key challenges with regard to education policy, which has always formed a crucial part of its development agenda. Improving the standards of education in India will be a critical test and it will need to resolve concerns over the content of the curriculum, as well as tackling the underlying challenges to education. India's "demographic bulge" - the hundreds of millions of young people who will flood its job markets in the next decade is in danger of sliding into a lopsided paunch that will weigh the nation down and crimp its gross domestic product. The problem is simple: Indians are obsessed with textbook education and white-collar dreams. Most of them shy away from blue-collar careers that could guarantee them employment and income. The less formally-educated youth lack proper vocational training and are doomed to drift from one low-paying stint to another. For a long time, academic performance in...