The Dark and Desperate State of Uttar Pradesh, Hindustan Times

A recent report in the Financial Times, caught my eye. Headlined ‘India advert for tea boys and guards attracts 2.3m applicants’, it spoke of the desperate desire for a government job among the young men of India’s largest state.

Earlier this year, the Uttar Pradesh Government had placed an advertisement for 368 Class IV posts of peons. A staggering 2.32 million applied for these jobs. As many of 255 of the applicans had Ph D’s, some in supposedly marketable subjects such as engineering. More...