Hi! My name is Navya and I come from Delhi, India. My undergrad experience of studying in a prestigious all-girls College as Miranda House, Delhi University, gave me the unique opportunity to find my voice sans the gendered power dynamics that unfortunately plague women’s interactions with the outside world. In that wonderful time I found my conviction to want to further women’s rights and opportunities. 

Majoring in philosophy, flying dangerously close to un-ending, unanswerable debates of equity vs equality, “Does life have inherent meaning”, “Does this chair even exist outside of my perception of it?!” (And like existential questions which miraculously intensified right before deadlines) implied that I was confused about a lot of things, as most philosophy majors are. However, I learnt to find comfort in that confusion, and to use that self-reflexivity as the basis for the policy-maker I one day hope to be. 

Interning at Invest India, the Indian government’s independent investment arm, was a workshop in honing an interest in public policy and how it addresses concerns in the real world. Another unwittingly insightful source on social discourses was my role as president of my college’s English Theatre Society. There I found a way to play out my confusions in a simulated, safe environment and learn that there are 2001 ways that props can go missing before an important performance. 

As we joke about being the ‘covid batch’, I do not take lightly the privilege of being able to travel around the world in these times. I hope to walk through the different cities to experience them, write and talk about things that need to be written and talked about, learn from the brilliant group of people who take this journey with me, have my opinions challenged and hopefully come back to India with some tales and lessons worth re-telling.