India, Feb. 6 -- The mention of mental health and well-being in the 2026 Union Budget as part of core infrastructure, signals a paradigm shift: It positions emotional resilience, cognitive diversity, and wellbeing not as luxuries, but as essential systems that underpin economic productivity, social cohesion, and democracy. A bigger question in many minds is, does it signal investment in a critical undervalued infrastructure like human capital?

The recent focus on 'brain economy', by the World Economic Forum in January this year, signals global and futuristic investment from India. The brain economy concept is a powerful economic and strategic lens that elevates mental health from a health issue to an essential infrastructure, aligning pe...