Session Report
Aishwarya Dutta
LPPYF Law and Public Policy Youth Fellowship is an Online National Summer School Program, a Two- Month Online Immersive Legal Awareness & Action Research Certificate Training Course and Internship Program, from June-August 2023 by IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute. An informative and interactive valedictory session was taken by Shri Surendranath Tripathi, retired IAS Officer and Director General of the Indian Institute of Public Administration based in New Delhi.
The session began with the welcome address of Nikita Bhardwaj, Researcher, Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), New Delhi. The course spanned through June, July and August hosting 27 sessions.
Introduction
The opening chair remarks were addressed by Professor Vibhuti Patel. She thanked the IMPRI team for their hard work to make this two and a half month course a success. She further added the course had 25 days of mind-boggling presentations by 40 experts from diverging fields. The resource persons had wide range of experiences as policy-makers, academicians, policy-makers, political scientists, activists, social scientists, lawyers, economists with inter-disciplinary perspectives spoke eloquently on law and public policy – both the theoretical issues and the practical applications and experiences were captured.
The inaugural session by Professor Sandeep Chanchra set the tone of the discourses on public policy. While discussing the International Human Rights Instruments we also saw how various economic, social, political and cultural rights were highlighted and their importance in today’s world. Discussions were also held regarding India’s economic condition post independence, how public policies played a role in shaping the course of the country was also discussed. The most interactive session was the one conducted by Dr. Shalu Nigam focuses particularly on topics like women’s rights, children’s rights, judicial activism, cyber crimes, cyber stalking and misuse of technology these days.
Public Policy Discourses
He began his address by highlighting the importance of Public Policy. He emphasized that no public policy is made without a purpose. Whenever a public policy is made, people, process and technology are taken care of along with taking into account the capacity of the state to deliver on those public policies. He further elaborated his idea with an example. He talked about making a policy for removing hunger in India.
Hunger is a crisis which nobody will ever want, neither the state nor the community or NGOs or the people. When a public policy is to be made on this problem, one has to dive deeper into the cause of the problem and understand how the problem can be removed permanently. If there is a point where a decision is taken that the problem of hunger will be removed through supplying cereal grains.
Now, to supply grains we need to see how much land is available for cultivation of cereals, how effective is the production and finally the outcome, whether it meets the ends. The capacity of the farmers to engage with technology and modern techniques of growing crops is also something which needs to be taken into account. Then comes the credit mechanism. How research and development is conducted on the same is also important.
The Public Distribution Policies, the Budgeting process etc., All these dimensions need to be taken into account for making a single policy on hunger. How long the state could afford to feed its people to remove the problem of hunger is also a vital concern.
By specifically moving the discussion towards India, in the context of managing hunger, he further adds several factors that need to be taken into account: who controls land, the food distribution chain, who controls the supply of grains, the transportation of grains, and others.
He further suggested the way in which several courses can be designed in the field of public policy to help more and more individuals gain important insights in the domain. He congratulated the entire IMPRI team for their sheer hard work and thorough dedication throughout the entire course period.
Conclusion
He wished good luck to all the individuals who wish to pursue a career in Public Policy. He congratulated IMPRI for the success of the Law and Public Policy Youth Fellowship (LPPYF).
Professor Vibhuti Patel addressed her vote of thanks for the enlightening insights by Shri SN Tripathi. After that Adv Dr. Shalu Nigam expressed her thoughts on the session.
Dr. Shalu Nigam congratulated the entire team of IMPRI for wonderfully executing the idea of LPPYF. She particularly thanked Dr. Arjun Kumar and Dr. Simi Mehta for their vision and efforts to truly make this programme a success. Dr. Nigam expressed her gratitude to Professor Vibhuti Patel for chairing all the sessions giving her thought provoking and enlightening insights. She has been an inspiration for all the team members as well as the participants who have completed their dissertations under her guidance. She thanked all the panelists for chairing their respective sessions.
Acknowledgement: Aishwarya is a Research Intern at IMPRI.
Youtube Video of Inaugural session for Law and Public Policy Youth Fellowship Programme: https://youtu.be/fT0XLKGJ6LY
Read more session reports for Law and Public Policy Youth Fellowship:
Careers in Law & Public Policy
