Future of India – Fellowship

The NSUI, the student wing of the Congress Party has launched the “Future of India” Fellowship – a 4-week public policy course for students and young professionals in June. Through this course, we hope to give young people the tools to deconstruct, analyze and understand the politics behind the policies. The Fellowship will focus on developing an understanding of the political considerations and implications of different policy choices to build a new generation of liberal, democratic and compassionate young leaders across India. Senior Congress leaders like Chidambaram, Salman Khurshid, Sam Pitroda, Jairam Ramesh, Ajay Maken, K Raju, Shashi Tharoor, Meenakshi Natarajan, Sachin Pilot and academics and activists have committed to teaching parts of the Course.

The idea is to broad-base the NSUI platform to offer space for multiple forms of political activity and give bright young people an opportunity to engage with Congress leaders they may otherwise not have access to. This is an attempt too to provide space to young people who are aligned with Congress ideology but not ready to join the Party. Do see a 50-second video which introduces the Fellowship here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA5A9gm-e_w. More details at http://nsui.in/politics/publicpolicy.html. Also attaching the press release. We will be grateful if this opportunity could be circulated in your mailing lists if possible.

The Future of NSUI: The Fellowship is part of a larger plan to expand and transform the NSUI. As the Party’s only institutional platform for educated young people, we are in the process of reorienting the NSUI to ensure that the Party becomes more responsive to the concerns and aspirations of young people. Therefore, apart from our bread and butter student union politics, we are focused on 3 things: making the NSUI a serious student organisation with an independent and thoughtful voice on issues facing our country; provide a platform for idealistic liberal politics and requisite training for emerging young leaders; and using the NSUI’s institutional linkages to open up the Party for young people to engage and influence Congress leadership at all levels.

We have been engaged in discussions with young people across the country and recently organised town halls across Karnataka for young people to meet with Congress leadership in an informal and unscripted manner to talk about the issues which matter to them – and ask questions. We are planning to do something similar in other states. I am keen to institutionalise these interactions to make them more meaningful and also use the space we have to facilitate a liberal discourse with/in the Party.