#38: Why is private equity paying 16x for India's schools?
A loss-making school chain was just valued at ₹7,200 crore, as the playbook that built a $14.5bn global giant reaches India's classrooms.
BharatNama
By Jayant Mundhra
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#37: Why EXACTLY are India's agri-exports being REJECTED?
India has won zero-tariff access across New Zealand, Britain and beyond, yet its produce keeps failing at the world's inspection counters.
#36: Why has India built only 217 of the PROMISED 5,000 biogas plants?
Delhi has just put ₹23,731 crore behind compressed biogas. Denmark already runs 40% of its gas grid on cow dung.
#35: Why does a Gulf war threaten 23% of Kerala's income?
On remittances, Kerala looks less like an Indian state and more like Nepal, and a fresh war in the Gulf is now testing that model to its limit.
#34: Why are 9 in 10 Indian workers still informal?
India’s economy has multiplied many times over since 1991, yet almost nobody it employs has been handed a formal, secure job.
#33: Why does 41% of Mumbai still live in slums?
India caps how much floor its cities can build, then acts surprised when the poor crowd into slums and its expensive new metros run half-empty.
#32: Why does 25% forest cover hide India's shrinking forests?
India counts orchards, rubber and bamboo as forest, so the map keeps greening even as tens of thousands of square kilometres of natural forest quietly degrade underneath.
#31: Why are over 10 crore Indians denied their ration!?
India promises cheap grain to two-thirds of its people, then counts them using a 2011 census that shrinks a little more against reality every year.
#30: Why does toxic air cost India 9.5% of GDP?
India's official books value the damage at 1.36% of GDP. The Lancet's method says it is seven times bigger.
#29: Why does India lose 80% of its elite AI talent?
India trains one in ten of the world's best AI researchers, then hands almost all of them to America.
#28: Why does Vietnam out-export India 8 to 1 per person?
India ships a record $825bn of goods and services a year, yet per head Vietnam sends out roughly eight times as much.
#27: Why does India leak 9.3mn tonnes of plastic yearly?
The official books say ~4.1mn tonnes a year. The best science says 9.3mn. India is the world's biggest plastic polluter, and it barely counts it.
#26: Why does India lose 40% of its piped water?
India keeps building dams and treatment plants, yet almost no city gets water round the clock, because the pipes leak faster than we can fill them.
#25: Why India pumps more GROUNDWATER than US+China combined?
India gets enough rain to be water-rich. It is going dry anyway, because it priced the one thing that could have saved it at zero.
#24: Why does India spend just 1.9% of GDP on health?
The 2.5% target was due in 2025. India missed it, and the gap does not show up in a budget line. It shows up at the pharmacy counter.
#23: Women make 43% of India's STEM students. But... Only 18.6% of Scientists?
India tops the world in women studying science, then loses almost all of them on the walk from the classroom to the lab bench and the boardroom.
#22: Why Rs 60,000 Crore in Mining Welfare Funds Remains Unspent?
As of early 2025, only ₹41,000 crore out of ₹1.03 lakh crore collected under District Mineral Foundation funds has been spent, leaving over ₹60,000 crore unused.
#21: Why 60% of India's Cold Storage Capacity is Concentrated in Just 4 States?
A 2015 study found India was losing ₹92,651 crore worth of major agricultural products annually to post-harvest mishandling.
#20: Why 40% Rural Indian Households Still Don't Use LPG Cylinders?
In 2019, one-third of all air pollution related deaths in the country were due to indoor pollution.
#19: Why 77% of India’s Gig Workers Still Have No Social Security?
Surveys show 85% of platform gig workers put in over 8 hours a day, and nearly one-third of app-based drivers work over 14 hours daily.