The Delhi Diaries

The Ashoka website describes the purpose of the Young India Fellowship as “bring(ing) together a group of 215 (now 285) bright young individuals who show exceptional intellectual ability and leadership potential from across the country, and trains them to become socially committed agents of change .” It’s a big statement. It’s ambitious. And it is a baffling notion for someone who is not part of the programme. Apart from a broad range of modules, the YIF focuses hugely on developing leadership and entrepreneurial skills. There are some of the mindset that leadership cannot be taught. Through a cocktail of upbringing and circumstances and fairydust, you either have it or you don’t. Dwight Jaggard, visiting professor from UPenn, is not of this opinion - he is of the view that leadership is something that can be learned and honed and that anyone, given the right training and mindset, can enhance their leadership potential. This does not mean that YIF students are waking up at 6a...

As I was handed my passport containing my Indian student visa the embassy official told me that I was going to a fake university. She said that the one that I had listed was not on their register of legitimate universities. Ashoka university – the university that I am attending – is 7 years’ young in its establishment. In a country whose universities are well known and have gained veteran status, I thought that perhaps the register simply had not been updated. I had provided her with offer letters and other supporting documentation so I didn’t understand how she had arrived at this conclusion and more so, why she seemed so smug about it. As I stood there, delighted in having the visa in my hand but simultaneously trying to process this information, I wondered, could I have been hood-winked? In this age of fake news, nothing is concrete. And the real question to be asked is; why on earth had she issued the visa in the first place if she had red-flagged its authenticity? Embassy of Ind...