Interview prep

 1. Tell us us about yourself

1. As you can see from my profile my story is about overcoming the odds and pursuit of excellence.
2. I come from a small town called Itarsi from a Lower middle class family. I am first generation graduate from my family. Despite all odds, I cracked one of the toughest exams in India with a good all India rank and graduated from IIT Kharagpur with a dual degree in computer science. I recently got young alumni achiever award from IIT. I have also gotten deferred admit to the Mid career masters program at Mid career Masters program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
3. Post IIT, I worked with investment banks lehman brothers and Nomura. 
4. While I was doing well in my career, I wanted to give back to the society and started volunteering for Non profit Pankhudi foundation to teach slum children at Kurla, Mumbai. There I saw big problems like poverty, illiteracy and missing children. It led me to work hard for civil services and it was a big day when I achieved my dream.
5. After one years of working in IRS, my desire to work at the grassroots led me to join Indian Police Service. Being an Indian Police Service officer, I have been responsible for maintaining law and order in various district with size of 5000  sq km , 2-5 million population and leading 2000-5000 policemen over last 9 years.
6. I have been a first- hand witness to mega events  in history nd have a unique perspective to like 2008 financial crisis and as district police chief of Ayodya district during recent Supreme Court Ayodhya verdict. It was my biggest leadership challenge. Ayodhya is home to 500 years old land dispute between two religious communities. It was perhaps the biggest legal question in the history of our nation. Ayodhya is the fulcrum on which communal harmony of the country rests. I vividly remember that day when SC gave us 24 hrs to prepare for the verdict. As the youngest district police chief of Ayohdya my task was to maintain law and order at the epicentre. I was under tremendous pressure as anything wrong here could lead to communal disharmony across the whole country.  Me an my team was able to achieve the goal leading to praise from National Seciurity Advisor which is the apex position wrt security In india. 
7. Now days I am first founding commandant of the Special Security force and am creating this force of 6000 personnel for protecting the vital installations of state like railways airports . 
8. Apart from my regular police duties, I am passionate about smart policing. Despite lot of red tapism and status quoism within government, I have been able to intitutionliasie and scale up lot my technological initiatives to serve the citizen across the state.But, during last nine years, I have realised that instead of picemeal initiatives, we should tackle the problem of security as a whole and technology is an choice for that.
9. So I have taken baby steps towards my most ambitious seed funded security policy initiative, policeman project which has the potential to solve the biggest problems related to security that the world has ever faced.I want to make it global to realise the vision of peaceful and interconnected world.

WHY HKS ?

internal

HKS is one of the most prestigious and well known institution in area of public administration 

-It was the only institution I applied to and fortunately got accepted there. 

-The unique mid career master in public administration program at US with a cohort of developing world leaders  is an ideal match for a mid career professional like me, who wants to come back to government in a policy making position to make a bigger impact. 

-The best thing about the program is that I can  tailor the program according my needs of specialisation in security, policy and technology esp ditial governance and transformation with ability to cross register at MIT as well with core subjects in economics for evidence based policy making along with  a digital track with subjects like technology, policy and governance, cyber security, managing digital disaster, public entterprenurship etc.- I have contacted  Prof David Eaves who heads digital track in policy making and 

Juliette Kayyem who works in area of home land and cyber security.

Outside the class

I can also actively participate with Harvard innovation lab wrt my policeman project along with ash centre of democratic give and carr centre fo human rights. 

I can also engage with HKS communities like criminal justice and business and government. 

In sum, studying at Harvard will  help me to achieve all my  personal and professional goals.

WHY MPA ?

WHY NOW MPA ?

1. Personal -

- As a mid career professional with 9 years experience of policy implementation at grassroots and state level,I now have a sense of requirements of citizens and why some polices fail but I need to learn art of evidence based policy making. It ill make me ready for my aspiration for policy making at nation and global level.

- Sometimes when you work in the same setting for a long time then u tend to get complacent and stop questioning the usual way of doing them. So I need to learn evidence based policy making in a cross cultural peer-based settin along with bright mason fellows who are leaders from developing countries.

- Future goals - project , deputy secretary MHA, NSA

2. Professional

- During my experience as SP Mirzapur, I worked in left wing extremism affected district. There I understood that we need to prepare a holistic security policy for India which is based on development-secuity nexus. 

- Also India has problems of terrorism, seperatism, extremism. Moreover, in era of globalisation and digital age the citizens have become more empowered and newer crimes have emerged.

- On the other hand, India has one of the lowest police public ratio in the world 

- So to bridge this gap technology along with evidence based policy formulation based on field experience can be the answer. So I want to specialise in the area of security , policy and technoo.

- I can also scale up the policeman solution to act as force multiplies to bridge this gap.

WHY US ?

- US is leader in homeland security and digital technologies.

- US is home to HKS which has the mid career masters prog which is natural match to me. WHY HKS?

-  True to Fulbright's motto of mutual understanding, I want to learn about the US culture and share my culture with the peers there as civil services gives me platform where I can play an important role for increased cooperation between the two nations.

- What will you do at US and why ?

Why Fulbright ? or why Fulbright should choose you 

- Fulbright is one of the most prestigious fellowship and My interactions with Fubrighters like Akhilesh Varrier from IPS , Keshav Chaudhary from IRS and Saurabh from RBI have made clear that it looks for leaders who are 'ambassadors of change'.

- As an innovator and leader, over the period of time I have been one who has despite against all odds have brought change  in governance through various initiatives and have instutionalised it. 

-Be it green group of rural women against domestic violence at Mirzapur or reuniting 100s of missing children as SP Jhasi. 

-Some of my inistiaves like citizen help desks at police stations and C- plan app haveing 1 million citizens as police friends have been scaled at the state level 

- My technological initiatives smart police led to saving of 1 million man hours and police deployment at incident free kumbh which is the largest congregation of man on the earth 

- I in tend to scale up my project of green group and policeman at a global level 

-I know once a fulbrighter is always a fulbrighter for life and I want to be undertake this responsibility to be a trailblazer in my chosen area through studies and mutual cooperation to create life long memories.

What is unique about yu ? why should we chose you ?

Diversty question of Harvard essay 

personal background 

intersection of disciplines 

mega event 

startup with in govt experience 

What are your short term and long term goals

- Given that future is going to be digital and paucity of leaders in domain at intersection of digital policy and security . I want to become  a leader in this areaand make policy to bring change to lives of millions of citizens

- In Short term, I wat to become the  deputy secretary  at Ministry of home affairs and create policies to benefit million of citizens. I intend to wok in areas of police modernisation , cybersecurity, development -security nexus, systems innovation  and projects scaling up like policeman and green group.

- In long term I want to become the national security advisor which is the apex security position in government of India ,where I will be working directly with the Hon'ble prime minister to make a holistic security policy. I intend to solve big problems like criminal justice reforms, internal and external security and cyber scurity.

Three strengths ?

- Leader ship - Ayodhya story or Mirzapur story 

- empathy - laptop story or pankhudi story 

- creativity  - projects variety 

Three weakness ?

Procrastination - How to eat frog, 2 minute rue and Pomodoro. 

Micro manage -  Ayohdya but required

IMpatient with change - my projects but now have changed 

What questions you have for me ?

How can I make most of my Fulbright experience at HKS ?

What you want to do In US ? How will you promote mutual understanding 

- 3F food festival and fitness - secretary story 

- Community service - child trafficking , sexual abuse specially the bail project

- HKS organisation s- chair , workshops , events 

-  intern consult with local org 

- Learn from the best and share my best practices . Cross pollination of Ideas

Failure story and what did u learn ?

Father 

Ayodhya