Policy Talks with K Yatish Rajawat

K YATISH RAJAWAT

The biggest podcast on policy-related issues in India, done by award-winning journalist and policy researcher Yatish Rajawat. The objective to discuss important and developing issues in policy related to technology, and economics with policy researchers, writers, and policymakers. read less
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Meta skills will be needed if you want a job, your degree is not enough
11-02-2023
Meta skills will be needed if you want a job, your degree is not enough
Yatish Rajawat: You talk about meta skills and you say they are more important than a college degree. Most of these skills like better social and leadership skills, creativity and complex problem-solving skills cannot be taught from a book or are very difficult to teach. Where should people go to learn these meta skills?  Ravi Venkatesan:  The education system is catering to a world that no longer exists. A world that was stable, where there were more reasonably abundant jobs for those who were educated, a world in which information was scarce. That has changed. And so I say, there are three or four meta skills or super skills that will really matter. One is learning agility, the ability to adapt to a situation you've never encountered before. The second is an entrepreneurial mindset. Not everybody is going to be an entrepreneur, but everybody needs the capacity to see opportunities, seize them, to be tenacious, creative problem-solvers. And then, the third meta skill is life skills. Almost every problem requires collaboration within an organization, across organizations or even across sectors. So, social skills like creativity, problem-solving, collaboration, communication will become hugely important.  None of these skills can be learned in a classroom and certainly not online. The only way to learn is through real-world experiences, particularly what I call Crucible Experiences, which is take on challenges which are outside your comfort zone and in the process of figuring it out, you develop all these skills. So I look back at my life and ask: What were the Crucible Experiences? For instance, going to IIT was a Crucible Experience. I’d always lived at home; living in a hostel and competing with some really smart people was quite tough. Going to the US and with almost no money, finding a job, rapidly climbing my way up was a Crucible Experience. Everybody can learn these skills. We run a huge programme in Delhi government schools called entrepreneurship mindset curriculum, and we’ve seen million-two million kids going through the programme and learning it experientially. So it’s very doable.   Yatish Rajawat: I want to quote from your book, “to retire at 60 and spend the next 30 years vacationing will be boring and unhealthy.” Even if people at that age want to work, it’s not very easy for them to find work. That is one class. And there’s a second type, essentially a younger generation whose basic needs are already met and lack ambition. What is your advice for these two types of people?  Ravi Venkatesan: I think just focusing on the income part of the work trivialises it. Somebody asked me, ‘Who are you?’ I’m a journalist. I’m a writer, I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a scientist. So identity is something that comes from your work. You find your community through work, you learn new things, you get the experience and satisfaction of accomplishing things
Can India have a policy on Digital banking licenses
11-02-2023
Can India have a policy on Digital banking licenses
While digital wallets are launching mega million IPOs one crucial banking sector remains warped under regulatory control. These is digital banking licenses. Policy Talks spoke to Sachin Chaturvedi a development economist and board member of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Our latest episode on “PolicyTalks”, the no-politics podcast brought to you by the Centre for Innovation in Public Policy (www.cipp.in), features Prof. Sachin Chaturvedi. Prof Chaturvedi is the Director-General of RIS, the Research and Information System for Developing Countries.  This think-tank on trade and innovation works under the Ministry of External Affairs.  He recently joined as Vice-Chairperson of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Good Governance and Policy Analysis (AIGGPA), a state-level policy-making and analysis institution in Madhya Pradesh. He is also on the board of the RBI and has recently authored a report on differentiated licenses and the entry of the private sector in banking.  In this episode, Prof Chaturvedi throws light, among others, on:  ·         Reconciling the current branch-based bank licensing model with the evolving model of branchless, digital banking  ·         India’s challenge for digital banking  ·         How RBI‘s digital initiative for SAARC will drive India’s broader global linkages   ·         Bridging the planning-implementation gap  ·         Innovations being unleased in Madhya Pradesh and Odisha
Bias Affecting the Rating of India's democracy. A global conspiracy against India and Modi govt ?
26-12-2022
Bias Affecting the Rating of India's democracy. A global conspiracy against India and Modi govt ?
Salvatore Babones is an associate professor at the University of Sydney in Australia. Salvatore Babones is a quantitative comparative sociologist. He is an associate professor at the University of Sydney and the director of the China and Free Societies program at the Centre for Independent Studies. He earned his MS (mathematical sciences) and Ph.D. (sociology) from Johns Hopkins University.   He has also written a book on the ranking of  Australian Universities, so he understands comparisons and ranking methodologies. He recently wrote an article on why India's ranking on three different indices tracking democracy is falling. These indices are by the Economist Intelligence Unit (#EIU), where Indian democracy ranking has been in decline ever since Mr. #Modi first took office in 2014. The ranking fell from number 27 in the world (just below Belgium) to number 46 (two spots below South Africa). The# EIU now labels India as a “flawed democracy” characterized by “serious deterioration in the quality of democracy. Sweden’s university-based Varieties of Democracy Institute (#V-DEM) ranks India even lower, at 101st in the world for electoral democracy (two places above even Myanmar) and 97th in the world for liberal democracy (one place above Papua New Guinea). Indeed, it claims that India is no longer a liberal democracy at all, but is now an “electoral autocracy” on par with Russia. Lastly, the  American government-funded think tank Freedom House considers India to be only “partially free”, with an overall freedom rank of tied-85th in the world. It even lists the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir as “unfree”.    Babones says the challenge is not with the institutions but with the inputs that it is collecting through its surveys that are leading to this bias and crash in the ranking. In this conversation, Babones talks about the biased sample of people who are asked to answer in this survey. He says that Indians abroad or even resident Indian "intellectuals" who participate in these surveys by these three institutions are biased against #narendramodi  Modi and #BJP and this results in a poor rating on these indices. He also says that the International or more specifically the American media is creating a narrative of anti-#bjp and Anti- #Narendra #modi that has now reached epic proportions and is affect Geo- strategic relations of India with the western world.  It is affecting India's perception among not just policymakers but ordinary Americans and Europeans who think that India is now a more dangerous place to go. The political opposition to BJP by the left forces has reached a stage where they are willing to damage India's perception globally as long as they are able to damage #BJP. Do watch, share, and give your opinion about this line of thinking.