Mishik Sharma

India’s technology job market is sending paradoxical signals. On one hand, a BusinessLine report (published on 10 April) points to a sharp rise in applications per tech role—doubling in some cases after layoffs and hiring slowdowns. On the other hand, a Quess Corp report (released on 20 April) highlights a 38-42% shortage of quality AI/ML talent, especially in Global Capability Centres (GCCs).  At first glance, these look contradictory. How can there be both a surplus of tech candidates and a shortage of tech talent? The answer lies in a structural mismatch that is becoming increasingly visible in India’s evolving tech ecosystem. The Real Problem: Not a Talent Shortage, but a Capability Gap The rise in applications per role reflects a surplus of generalist, application-level talent—engineers trained for routine coding, testing, and IT services work. These roles formed the backbone of India’s IT success over the past two decades. However, the nature of demand is shifting. According ...

India’s semiconductor push has, understandably, been framed around fabs, frontier nodes, and technological sovereignty. The ambition is valid. But there is a quieter constraint that cannot be ignored: time. Semiconductor ecosystems take decades to mature, while India faces a far more immediate challenge—a large and restless youth cohort that must be absorbed into productive, dignified work. Bridging this mismatch requires a shift in emphasis, not a dilution of ambition. India should remain committed to a full-stack semiconductor ecosystem. But in the near term, it needs a layer that can scale faster, distribute geographically, and generate employment without waiting for long-gestation breakthroughs. That layer is semiconductor packaging . The Constraint: Long Horizons, Immediate Pressures Building cutting-edge fabs, materials ecosystems, and advanced design capabilities is a generational project. It requires capital, coordination, and institutional depth that cannot be rushed. Yet Indi...

India’s industrial transformation narrative is evolving rapidly. The language of Industry 4.0/5.0 now dominates policy discourses and public discussions. The next phase of industrialization is to be driven by green energy, AI, automation, and digitally coordinated production and logistics systems. Factories and fieldsites are expected not only to be powered by green energy, but also to operate as intelligent, adaptive systems. This vision is directionally sound—but structurally incomplete. The current discourse makes two conceptual leaps. The first, as I argued in a blogpost on 11 April, moves from renewable energy generation to industrial consumption, often overlooking the electrical infrastructure required to make power usable at scale. The second leap moves from powered systems to intelligent systems—without adequately accounting for the infrastructure that enables real-time control and responsiveness. If electrical infrastructure forms the first missing layer in this transition, e...

On 13 April, a short political news report in the New Indian Express drew citizens' attention to an under-examined concern: the expanding role of consultancy firms in government. The news capsule said that consultancy firms now draft policy papers, design tenders, manage bids, and sometimes oversee implementation. In several cases, they act like end-to-end operators while the official machinery only signs approvals and clears payments worth thousands of crores. The Cabinet Secretariat is reportedly now reviewing this dependence. The concern is valid—but incomplete. The real issue is not that consultants are present in governance. Modern states, especially those operating at India’s scale and complexity, will inevitably draw upon external expertise. The deeper issue is that consultants are being used in ways that reflect underlying structural gaps within the administrative system. In that sense, consultant dependence is not the disease. It is the symptom. The Misdiagnosis: “Too Much...

Over the past decade, India has become significantly better at building industrial capability. Production-linked incentives, logistics corridors, cluster-based development, and targeted skilling programmes have begun to produce credible manufacturing and technology ecosystems. In sectors ranging from electronics to renewable energy, the state has shown that it can assemble land, infrastructure, policy support, and demand visibility into functioning industrial nodes. But a structural gap remains. These successes tend to stay localised. They do not reliably replicate across geographies. India does not lack industrial policy. It lacks a scale-out system. Early Signals of Scale—But Not Yet Systemic There are early signals that India is beginning to move beyond isolated capability creation into scaling. India's smartphone manufacturing ecosystem has vastly expanded over the last few years. More recently, the broader electronics manufacturing ecosystem has also expanded. In parallel, gre...

Indian cities are expanding, yet daily life for most residents feels increasingly strained. Congested streets, strained public services, and financially weak local governments have become the norm rather than the exception. The recent launch of the Urban Challenge Fund (UCF), on 15 April, by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs offers a fresh approach — ₹1 lakh crore in central assistance to catalyse ₹4 lakh crore in total investment, with a clear push towards market-linked financing, redevelopment, and strengthening Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). Central share is capped at 25%, and the scheme emphasises bankable projects, municipal bonds, PPPs, and credit guarantees for smaller cities. This is a welcome shift from pure grant dependence. However, history shows that even well-designed central schemes often remain paper exercises if ULBs lack genuine interest and ownership — especially in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Without building real capacity and fiscal strength at the local level, th...