While we drown in the noise of debates over what...

I’m always amazed when foreigners visit India in search of inner peace. Admittedly, you can discover a lot of wonderful things in India, but peace certainly is not one of them.

The energy crisis in this country is an urgent and growing concern. Our oil imports have doubled in the last decade; we now import around 80% of our crude oil requirements. Roughly 70% of the energy generated in India is through coal – an undependable resource now in shortage.

By the year 2020, India is predicted to have not only the largest labour force in the world, but also the youngest. However, with the burgeoning population of urban youth and college degrees, there co-exists a pathetic state of mass sub-urban/rural unemployment statistic that makes the Indian economy seem like a convoluted paradox.

The world is reeling. It all started in 2008 with the subprime crisis in the US, which spared no corner of the globe, followed by the fall of the PIGS economies. Later, when the world was waking up to the recovery call, the Middle East fell into turmoil and a tsunami struck Japan. To add to the fire, S&P downgraded the US’s credit rating from AAA to AA+.

Reporting is no longer limited to writers and broadcasters with years of professional journalism experience. Ordinary citizens, or citizen journalists, can report on events as they see them so that we can read about them as they happen. They shoot pictures of events they deem newsworthy and share them with their friends, who share them with their friends—and the cycle goes on.

Vikrant and his brother Vishant started an NGO that helps underprivileged children. They then created a green business with a 500 crore potential. He is one of the winners for Spark the Rise Round 1.