New Delhi, Oct. 7 -- More Indians can buy a share of the market today than at any point in history. Whether they are investing with a plan is a different question - and a newer category of research-backed model portfolios is trying to answer it.

India's demat account base has crossed 21 crore (NSDL and CDSL combined data, October 2025) - the highest in the country's history. Discount brokers, mobile-first onboarding, and a wave of first-time investors have made buying stocks easier than ever. By almost any measure of access, Indian retail investing has arrived.

Access, though, was never really the hard part. What happens after someone opens that demat account - whether they hold through a downturn, follow a plan, or get pulled into what...