New Delhi, March 23 -- India is experiencing the first, heady tranche of its demographic dividend, amply visible in the performance and growing influence of a shining sliver, a small fraction, of young India. But to call victory and assume that the rest of young India is poised to automatically follow suit in time is hasty. Our study, 'Drivers of Destiny,' takes a deep ethnographic dive into the large 'mass' or mainstream of young India, pivotal to India's future over the next 50 years. With the belief that a deeper understanding of them will enable policies that deliver better demographic dividends, we sought to understand, from the inside, how young people act, think about their lives and make sense of their world.

The segment chosen f...