All India Students' Association (AISA) president Neha Bora is set to lead a month-long nationwide campaign titled 'Gen Z Rising' beginning 7 August from Ranchi, carrying forward the demands raised at the recent Jantar Mantar protest in New Delhi. The left-wing student outfit announced the campaign on Thursday, 6 August, describing it as a grassroots effort to consolidate student and youth mobilisation across the country.

What the Campaign Demands

The 'Gen Z Rising' tour is anchored around three core demands: abolition of the National Testing Agency (NTA), repeal of the National Education Policy (NEP), and guaranteed quality education and employment for youth. The campaign follows the removal of Dharmendra Pradhan as Union Education Minister amid the controversy over NEET UG 2026 irregularities, which AISA cited as a trigger for intensifying its agitation.

Bora will be joined on the tour by fellow hunger strikers and movement leaders including Danish Ali, Manish, Aameen Amitoj, and others, according to the organisation's statement.

Tour Schedule: First Leg

The first leg of the campaign covers a sweeping geographic arc. Bora is scheduled to lead events in Kolkata on 11 August, Jaipur on 14 August, Hyderabad on 16 and 17 August, Vijayawada on 18 August, Chennai on 20 August, Calicut on 22 August, Bengaluru on 23 August, Mumbai on 25 August, Pune on 26 August, Nagpur on 27 August, and Bhubaneswar on 29 August. A separate schedule covering Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, and Haryana is to be released later, AISA said.

The Unemployment Crisis Framing

AISA grounded its campaign in employment data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), which it cited to argue that India is facing an unprecedented jobs crisis. According to the organisation's statement, of an estimated 378 million Indians aged 15 to 29 years, approximately 128 million want to work but only 83 million are employed — implying an effective unemployment rate of 35% within that cohort.

The statement further noted that urban unemployment among those aged 20 to 24 has crossed 50%, up from 45% seven years ago, while unemployment in the 25 to 29 age bracket has risen from 15% to over 20% in the same period. AISA also flagged what it described as the increasing contractualisation of jobs and what it called attempts to curtail worker rights through the labour codes of 2025.

Context and Significance

The 'Gen Z Rising' campaign is AISA's most expansive mobilisation drive in recent years, spanning at least 14 states and targeting direct interaction with student and youth populations at the local level. This comes amid a broader national conversation around examination integrity following the NEET UG controversy, which has drawn responses from student groups across the political spectrum. The campaign's framing — linking education reform to the employment crisis — reflects a deliberate effort to broaden the movement's appeal beyond campus politics into wider economic grievances.

How much traction the tour generates on the ground will be closely watched, particularly in states where state-level student politics is already competitive.