New Delhi, Sept. 6 -- Student protests at Jantar Mantar in Delhi did not only secure the resignation of India's former education minister Dharmendra Pradhan but should also be credited with other achievements.

The first, and interesting, outcome is how it has helped revive students' abilities to articulate concerns about the education system's structural flaws, exercise agency over their own future and re-assert their civil rights while interrogating authority.

Second, it once again underscored the contradictions and paradoxes that bedevil India's society and economy. But, more importantly, it has refocused attention on an issue that has been left hanging in the air: can welfare economics paper over structural fault-lines?

These three ...