What?
Last year at CCS Academy, we curated a platform for CCS alumni, young students and professionals to engage in themes and discussions around public policy; now popularly called Baithak: Conversations in Policy. Baithaks follow an open group discussion format where the speaker is also the moderator of the debate, the principal guide and the facilitator of free flow of information among all the participants.
Why?
The idea of Baithak is to give a platform to all CCS graduates and potential course participants to come together for a discussion on contemporary socio-cultural and economic issues in the presence of prominent voices from the liberal movement in India. Its objective is to create a knowledge ecosystem, impacting the policy space in India at large.
You will be learning from their experiences running campaigns on the ground - from street vendors, to budget private schools, to property rights for tribals, to technology freedom for farmers.
Topic
Reconciling Experiential and Intellectual Learning
If you have missed, you can watch the complete discussion here.
About Speakers
Barun Mitra is a thinker and a writer, always trying to explore ways to translate ideas into possible actions. His key interest is to find ways of generating political capital from the ideals of liberty, peace and prosperity, in order to make these principles and policies socially and politically viable. He firmly believes that the strength of citizenship lies in being able to engage actively on public issues, without being an expert. Since 2017, he has been associated with grassroots farmers organisations on a range of agriculture issues. Early in 2019, he had taken the initiative to draft a Farmers Manifesto for Freedom. In the summer of 2019, he was a part of the Kisan Satyagraha in Maharashtra, where farmers publicly sowed unapproved GM cotton to express their demand for access to latest technologies. Between 2010 and 2016, he worked with ARCH Vahini, Gujarat, to help poor forest dwelling communities claim their property rights over land and local natural resources, and develop a web platform to implement the Forest Rights Act 2005.
Amit Chandra is the Chief Executive Officer of Centre for Civil Society. He is a passionate promoter of liberal values with an interest in improving governance in the area of school education and livelihoods. He is a social development professional with experience in research, advocacy, and outreach. His work has played an important role in designing the following public policy discourse in India: National Urban Street Vending Act 2014, amendments to India Forest Act 1927, amendments to Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act 2006, and initiatives taken under Ease of Doing Business campaign by Government of India. His work and views have been widely quoted in media and academic publications. He mentors/advises several for-profit and not-for-profit organisations and is also a member of a few committees set up by the state governments. Previously, Amit has worked with The Asia Foundation (TAF) in Kabul and Central Square Foundation in Delhi.
