After corruption and poverty, religious conflict the most pressing problem for India: Survey

New Delhi: For millennials in India, religious conflict is the most pressing problems affecting the country after corruption and poverty, shows a new survey.

According to WEF’s Global Shapers Annual Survey 2016, around 49.6 percent of respondents in India believe government accountability & transparency/corruption is a serious issues affecting the country.

While 39.7 percent of Indian respondents believe the most pressing problem is poverty, 32.7 percent believe it is religious conflict and 31.1 percent says it is lack of education.

The global survey offers insights into the thinking, priorities and concerns of young people around the world. It covered more than 26,000 participants in 181 countries.

At the global level, for the second year in a row, millennials see climate change as the most serious issue affecting the world, followed by large-scale conflicts, religious conflicts and poverty.

When asked who could successfully tackle these challenges in their countries on the global level, millennials trust themselves most with solving local challenges (26 percent), followed by governments (20 percent) and civil society (17 percent).

For global challenges, young people trust international organisations (26 percent) and, again, themselves (20 percent).

The survey further noted that millennials are optimistic about technology, and 86 percent of respondents globally believe that technology, while destroying some jobs, will eventually be a driver of job growth.

When asked about which sector would benefit the most from adoption of latest technologies 24.7 percent respondents in India said it is agriculture, followed by government (17.3 percent) and education (16 percent).

Meanwhile, governments across the world don’t get high approval ratings from young people when it comes to the adoption of new technologies, with 41 percent criticising them as too slow.

The biggest contribution from the private sector is job creation (36 percent) and economic development/foreign investment, with 20 percent of respondents choosing that option.

When it comes to their own careers, millennials are looking for jobs that provide a fair salary (54 percent), a growth perspective (45 percent) and a sense of purpose (36 percent).

About 74 percent are confident, or extremely confident, that they bring the right skills to the job market. There is less optimism for career prospects, with only 54 percent optimistic or very optimistic about their job prospects, the survey added.