Recently, on my tour to Meghalaya, I travelled by road from Guwahati to Shillong. The road was wide and traffic flowed smoothly. This was once an old, winding road, perilously narrow and choked with traffic, where smoke-emitting lorries made travel miserable. My first stop was at the backwaters of the scenic Umiam lake in Ri Bhoi district. The waters of the rivers, Wah Umkhrah and Wah Umshyrpi, were dammed in the 1960s to harness their hydel power. Today, the man-made lake has also become a hub of water sports and adventure activities. Tourism has given a year-long livelihood opportunity to those in the lake’s vicinity, emblematic of the government and citizens’ approach to places with potential for tourism. A project transforming the lake into a world-class tourism hub with a crafts village, cultural pavilion and botanical gardens is being funded under the Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment (SASCI) scheme.

We reached Shillong by evening to attend the first North-East Roundtable on the Prime Minister Internship Scheme (PMIS). This gathering brimmed with the energy and determination of young interns who seek to realise their dreams through opportunities created by the PMIS, piloted to connect the youth with top companies across India. Nito S Kiho, a 22-year-old from Dimapur, Nagaland spoke to me, with the cool air befitting a lead guitarist in a band, about how he wished to start a clothing brand with his friends after the internship.

The strident ambition of another intern, Elisabeth Lalsim from Dima Hasao district of Assam shone as she explained how she has chosen to intern at the Power Grid Corporation in the East Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya in order to gain experience in electrical engineering. Her zeal echoed William Yeats’s sentiment about education as not the filling of a pail but as the lighting of a fire. Speaking in Khasi, Khlainkupar Lynkhoi recounted how he is interning at the Rural Electrification Company Ltd. and is motivating households to register for the PM Suryaghar Muft Bijli Yojana. It was music to my ears when........

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