India's draft National Youth Policy (NYP), 2021 envisages unlocking the potential of youth to advance India and five priority areas- education; employment and entrepreneurship; youth leadership and development; health, fitness and sports; and social justice. The "Youth in India 2022", a report published by the Social Statistics Division of National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), has brought to light the hard realities that the country's efforts of creating a demographic dividend by taking advantage of having the world's largest youth population, are mired in challenges of social exclusion and gender disparity. Quoting from the Report of Technical Group on Population Projections, constituted by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the MoSPI report states that youth in the age group of 15-29 years comprise 27.2% of the country's population for year 2021 which is expected to decrease to 22.7 by 2036 but still huge in absolute numbers of 345 million. However, the achievements made under the NYP 2014, which is proposed to be replaced with the NYP 2021, are significant and demonstrate the importance of prioritising youth empowerment in all aspects to create the desired demographic dividend. The gender gap in literacy continues to persist despite significant improvement in female literacy. Addressing the problems of urban-rural divide and persisting regional disparities is critical to eliminate the gender disparity among youth and creating equal opportunities of employment and livelihood. The Labour Force Participation Rate is a significant indicator of where the country stands as far as demographic dividend goals are concerned. The MoSPI report states that during 2017-18, young people's participation rate in the labour force was at low levels of 38.2% which increased to 41.4% during 2020-21. It points out that that young women's labour force participation is far below the young men's in all the regions and also overall the years. "However, LFPR of female youth rose by around 5 percentage points from 2017-18 to 2020-21 with the increase more in rural than urban areas. In the 15 years and above age group also, maximum increase in LFPR was of rural females, from 24.6 in 2017-18 to 36.5 in 2020-21," is adds pointing towards the male-female and urban-rural gaps. The action plans under the NYP 2021 addressing these issues will be crucial to achieve the envisioned goals and objectives. High youth unemployment in India is another problem area flagged in the report. The youth unemployment rate was "still on higher side" despite "significant reduction" from 17.8 % in 2017-18 to 12.9% in 2020-21, it states and adds that urban area experienced worse unemployment scenario of youth than rural area and female youth experienced higher unemployment rate as compared to male youth. The NYP 2021 states that employed young women and men pave the path to a strong economy and are central to a nation's prosperity and the returns on employment are deeply interlinked with the indices of development, such as health, nutrition, and education. The draft policy envisions a future for the Indian youth to 'empower young Indians to grow enterprises and find sustainable, productive employment" but more emphasis in reducing gender disparity is needed to ensure that the goal does not remain in policy statement. Another key data sets highlighted in the MoSPI report for policymakers and other stakeholders is that the data on percentage of youth "participating in a day in unpaid domestic service activities for household members" and "average time spent in a day in unpaid domestic service activities". At all-India level, 79.2% female youth were engaged in food and meals management and preparation followed by 65.9% females engaged in cleaning and maintaining of own dwelling and surroundings and 48.6% females involved in care and maintenance of textiles and footwear whereas, for male youth, the proportions were 6.4%, 6.1% and3.5% respectively. Again, the phenomenon was more highlighted in rural areas than urban areas, the report states which also explains how gender disparity and urban-rural divide are posing stumbling blocks to India reaping its demographic dividend despite significant increase in government investment on the agenda of youth. The government investment increased by Rs 65,000 crores from Rs 92,000 crores in 2012-13 to Rs 157,000 crores in 2018-19. The increased in investment has been attributed to inclusion of non-target scheme on youth-targeted schemes worth Rs 55,000 crores in which youths were significant beneficiaries in addition to youth-targeted schemes in education, health, skill development and other areas. The NYP2021 points out that budget for Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports in 2020-21 was Rs 2200 crore and grew incrementally at 0.01% of India's GDP compared to some lesser developed Asian countries like Bahrain and Nepal at 0.2% of GDP and Bangladesh at 0.1% of GDP. The MoSPI report findings justify mobilising required resources to achieve the objectives of the new youth policy.