Alumni Feature | Devarchan Banerjee, Master’s in Public Policy ‘18

Devarchan’s life has revolved around two passions: math and mud. The first is an appreciation of logic and empirical rigour, and the second is a desire to understand the diverse experience of communities. His training in computer science fulfilled the former, while his work as a social entrepreneur for improving livelihoods in the Sundarbans allowed him to explore the latter. With the venture incubated in the Changelooms fellowship for young social entrepreneurs, Devarchan decided to pursue the Master’s Programme in Public Policy at National Law School, and graduated in 2018. The MPP programme gave him a contextual understanding of the Indian state, a glance into the lived experiences of communities and adequate empirical training to solve policy problems. The Law School shaped Devarchan’s long-term research interests, including an interest in subnational and regional differences in institutional quality and policy priorities. He explored this further as a Rajiv Gandhi Cambridge Trust Scholar pursuing an MPhil in Development Studies (2018-19) from the University of Cambridge, with a focus on post-colonial policies. Between 2019-2020, he was a Research Associate at the Booth School of Business (UChicago) in Uganda. Furthermore, he worked as a management consultant with Dalberg Global Development Advisors, where he interacted with multilateral agencies, nonprofits and several actors within the Indian Government and foreign governments, on a variety of development sector challenges including sustainable agriculture, Covid-19 policy on early childhood development, intellectual disability and gender inclusion. He will start his doctoral studies in 2021 at the Said Business School, University of Oxford. His wish is to understand the ‘puzzle’ of differences in institutional outcomes in public education amongst Indian states. “My time at NLSIU was pivotal to develop my long-term research interests and discover my niche in the development/public policy field,” says Devarchan. “Along with a diverse and open-ended curriculum and a faculty that encouraged creative yet grounded problem solving, I believe I gained also from a fantastic cohort of extremely individuals passionate about development challenges and willing to debate and engage with ideas openly from their disciplinary and ideological perspectives. My years at Nagarbhavi were some of my best.