Alumni Feature | Abhiudaya Verma, Master’s in Public Policy ‘21

Abhiudaya Verma pursued his Bachelors in Economics from Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University. Since his graduation he’s been involved in social work and activism. His preliminary work ranges from promoting LGBTQ+ rights by working with various NGOs and societies, like Leher, DCAC and Delhi Pride Circle, to volunteering at animal rescue organisations in Delhi. His social activism during his graduation led him to pursue a career in Public Policy. During his field work at Shiksha Ane Samaj Kalyan Kendra, a rural NGO in Amreli, Gujarat, Abhiudaya went on to capture the distress of rural farmers in villages of Amreli District in a short documentary that helped the organisation spread their word. Being a strong supporter of queer rights, Abhiudaya joined the National Law School Queer Alliance (NLSQA) as a member and was soon elected as the Joint Convener of the committee. At NLSQA, he played a key role in preparing an Anti-discrimination policy for the gender and sexual minorities in colleges which was recently formally adopted by the GNLU administration. Having interest in climate change policy and space policy as well, Abhiudaya interned at Observer Research Foundation (ORF) under the Strategic Studies Programme where he published an opinion piece on the ORF website on “The growing need for Earth Observation Satellites to deal with Climate Change” dated 13 July 2020. He also helped the organisation prepare relevant policy themes in the space domain to be discussed at the Kalpana Chawla Space Policy Dialogue, 2020. Abhiudaya has also been published by the LexQuest Foundation. Abhiudaya’s experience in working at NGOs and in being a student of Economics made him inclined towards the issue of social investments in India, following which he decided to write his dissertation on the newly proposed Social Stock Exchange for India. Abhiudaya also interned at the Fiscal Policy Institute, Government of Karnataka, where he prepared a report on the Impact of COVID-19 on Fiscal Indicators. For Abhiudaya, inclusivity and sensitivity are the key approaches towards Public Policy.