The need of the hour is to realize Gandhi’s dream of Gram Swaraj: Dr Parth Shah

New Delhi. Dr Parth Shah, Founder and Director of the Indian School of Public Policy and President of think tank Centre for Civil Society has said, the need of the hour is to realise the dream of Gandhi’s ‘Gram Swaraj’, a concept of putting public and villages in the centre of policymaking. He further said that the main objective of any democracy was to involve public in the making of public policy. ‘The approach of our system is still restrictive to regulating public rather ensuring their participation in the public policy’, he added. Dr Shah was interacting with policy experts and students of public policy during a dialogue ‘Log Ko Lokneeti Me Layein (Bring Public Back to Public Policy)’ organised by Indian School of Public Policy. Associate Dean of ISPP Dr Neeti Shikha moderated the discussion.

Dr Parth Shah stressed on the democratisation of the process of making public policy and studies of the same. He said, elite and English speaking people mainly from foreign universities have been dominating the process of making public policy. Now, the time has come to identify and promote local talents and experts from Hindi speaking region as well in the formulation of public policy. During the dialogue, Dr Shah announced the launch of a short-term public policy course in the Hinglish language. This would be a unique course that will focus on understanding local needs and engage in evidence-based policy, champion the local data revolution by learning the big data skills, improve the effectiveness of policies through application of nudge/ behaviour change and building state capacity in data, project M&E and behaviour change communication. Dr Shah also presented an analysis of the electoral systems of different countries.