Research

Field research, policy paper, annotated bibliography

Researcher, Chief Minister's Office, Uttarakhand

June 2025

I spent a month as a researcher, reporting to the Secretary to the Chief Minister and Head of the Dept. of Drinking Water, State of Uttarakhand.

My role was to conduct primary research to evaluate the socio-economic impact of the Jal Jeevan Mission, a program instituted by the Government of India to provide functional household tap connections to Every Village Household. I adapted the World Bank and other existing program evaluation tools to prepare the tools used to collect the data.

With approvals from the authorities and in collaboration with Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan and Uttarakhand Jal Nigam (local state water utilities), I conducted 6 focus group discussions and 14 in-depth interviews with women and girls across 6 villages in Pauri district, Garhwal region, getting inputs from a total of 60 women and girls.

I transcribed and analysed all the data collected, prepared a detailed report, and presented my recommendations to the Chief Minister’s office, offering concrete suggestions around technology incorporation and systems provisions that could ease the process of implementation of the program across the entire state and its 7 million-strong rural population.

One of the villages where I conducted field research was Masan Gaon, my ancestral village, which, I discovered, was unable to access piped water owing to some minor concerns. My research armed the local water utility with the data to make the necessary corrections and include Masan Gaon in the implementation plan for providing piped water access. Being able to bring water to every household in my ancestral village was a dream come true!

My work was covered in local and national news by Firmus News Network, Times of Hindustan, and The Pioneer.

With the research team and research participants in Rakhun village

With some of the research participants in Phalswari village

Masan Gaon, my ancestral village in Garhwal

With the research team and research participants in Rakhun village

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Research Intern, School of Economics and Public Policy (SoEPP), RV University, Bengaluru

I completed a one month Internship with Professor Ranjini C. Raghavendra at the School of Economics and Public Policy (SoEPP), RV University, on the project ‘This is Essential Work—Holistic Valuation of Breastfeeding’, a project in partnership with Open University, Milton Keynes, UK and University of West of England, Bristol, and supported by a Grand Challenges Canada Grant.

During my internship, I reviewed research papers, organised the review of literature as part of the annotated bibliography into thematic areas, and curated case studies. I also helped with organising a workshop on ‘This is essential work: Towards a holistic valuation of breastfeeding in society’ held in Bangalore, 8–10 January, 2025. The workshop was attended by 21 experts. I prepared a presentation deck on “Public Health and Milk Banks” for the workshop and supported the coordination and organising activities, including collating a list of all relevant publications by the speakers, for reference; and creating and maintaining a tracker for all speakers and the status of their documents, documenting the workshop discussions, and preparing the workshop report.

December 2024–January 2025

As a young person, a large part of my life is lived online. Interacting with my friends, working, exploring, or enjoying music, the online world makes all this much more accessible. There is, though, a flip side to this that I worry about: the privacy of my online data.

After reading Professor Sylvie Delacroix’s article titled ‘Bottom-up data Trusts: Disturbing the “one size fits all” approach to data governance’ in the journal International Data Privacy Law, I was encouraged to learn of the innovative data trust models being devised to protect online user data. However, even these innovative models did not fully address the vulnerability of young Internet users, who often lack the maturity, knowledge, and tools to make informed decisions about their data privacy.

To advocate for the need for a Child Centric Approach to Data Trusts I wrote a position paper that was later published in Aapti Institute, India's #1 Data Think Tank. The objective of my article was to advocate for the urgent need to address the lack of tailored provisions in data trust models designed to protect the youth. The article developed the perspective of children and adolescents, identified policy gaps & suggested potential solutions.

Author, Policy Paper

August–September, 2025