Of the many egregious errors of the Nehru-Indira socialist decades was to deny citizens the basic necessity of a telephone for over half a century. In another avatar as editor of Business India, I recall rabble-rouser and prize duffer George Fernandes — who God had no mercy — was appointed Union minister of industry, informing my astonished ears that telephones were luxury items for idle chat and gossip, and didn’t sit well with Indian socialism. As a result I had to endure 13 years of using pay phones, until after pulling many strings, I was awarded this luxury item at home. 

Therefore, when miraculously the mobile phone became easily available to all in the new millennium, I was delighted, not because I could indulge in idle chat and gossip but because of a great workplace productivity leap.  Although media and other pundits ascribe doubling of the annual GDP growth rate in the new millennium to the half-cocked liberalisation of the economy in 1991, I believe the mobile phone revolution added at least 3 percent to annual GDP growth because of greater ease of doing business.

However two decades later, the world is experiencing the downsides of the mobile phone revolution. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the smartphone has evolved into an entertainment medium. Taking advantage of cheap internet connectivity and decreasing price of cell phones,  a new genre of American ICT (information communication technologies) megabucks corporations have designed ingenious ways and means to continuously addict people — especially impressionable children and youth — to online idle chatter, gossip and continuous scrolling of disconnected video reels. To the extent that the academic learning and mental and physical health of hundreds of millions of children and youth worldwide glued to their smartphones, is suffering serious decline.  

Late last year, the Federal government of Australia enacted legislation transferring the onus of preventing children and teens from accessing addictive social media platforms from parents to Big Tech corporations. Several other countries notably France and Spain, have initiated similar legislation. In this month’s cover feature, we have issued a clarion call for Central government legislation to force Big Tech corporates to utilise new age detection technologies to prevent children and youth accessing their debilitating social media platforms and apps. In our detailed cover feature citing child development experts, we advance compelling reasons why government needs to urgently follow the Australian example and save GenNext from the detrimental impact of social media gone haywire. 

The cover feature apart, this year’s second issue features a photo essay on the EducationWorld India Preschool Rankings 2025-26 Awards and EW Early Childhood Education National Conference 2026 attended by over 400 ECCE leaders and professionals, thought-provoking editorials, and expert comment essays. Join us in our mission to “build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda”. Because let’s face it squarely: sine qua non.