In the 14th episode of Jack of all knowledge, I'm talking to Alok Prasanna Kumar, co founder of Vidhi center for legal policy. Vidhi works on various law and justice issues and is committed to drafting good laws, strengthening public institutions, and realising fundamental rights. Alok did his undergraduate from NALSAR and then went to do his BCL from Oxford. After a brief career in litigation, he was part of the founding team of Vidhi - a think tank that has come a long way since the winter of 2013 when it was started. 

In the following conversation we talk about many things. We extensively talk about Alok's earlier days, during school and the later, law school, his interests and experiences. We have an insightful discussion on legal education - both undergraduate and masters and how both impacted him as a legal scholar and a person. We then dive deep into the Vidhi story. We talk about the genesis of the think tank, how did they scale up, the values and culture that drives Vidhi, how they take up new projects and measure progress. 

Producing this podcast takes a lot of my time and effort. From finding the right guests, to recording and editing. If you enjoy listening to the podcast, I would encourage you to support my work by buying me a coffee! Basically for each coffee you buy, I get 375 rupees - and all of this will help me focus on producing high quality conversations for free. I've included the link in the description. Consider supporting (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/divyanshudembi) 

Vidhi Center of legal policy - https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/

In the 13th episode of the Jack of all knowledge I'm talking to Abhinav Sekhri. Abhinav is a practicing lawyer based in Delhi. He graduated from NLS Bangalore in 2014 and since then has been litigating. He is especially interested in criminal law, evidence and procedure and also edits and writes about the same on his blog Proof of Guilt. He attended HLS for his masters on an Inlaks Shivdasini scholarship.

Relevant links:

1. Proof of guilt: https://theproofofguilt.blogspot.com/

2. Section 66A and other legal zombies: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3275893

3. Shreya Singhal on the case: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Gj8hUd2DJ03LDxVNCzru2?si=GxdE3iSuQz60oWhkh7DNEA&dl_branch=1

4. Section 69A of the IT act must go: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/section-69a-of-it-act-must-also-go-1012522.html?utm_source=pocket_mylist

5. Disintegration of Criminal Justice System: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-disintegration-of-the-criminal-justice-system/article32785928.ece?utm_source=pocket_mylist 

In this episode, I'm talking with Sukhnidh Kaur about a range of tech policy issues - from data governance, platform regulation, free speech and private power, and most importantly - about her work as the Digital Literacy fellow at the Internet Freedom Foundation. If you're buzzing in and around the Indian tech policy scene, chances are that you've seen Sukhnidh's brilliant explainer videos about complex legal and technological issues which she did on behalf of IFF. We talk about how she broke down these complex issues into accessible chunks of media, how memes can help generate awareness, and why we need people other than lawyers in Indian tech policy. In the later half of our conversation, we talk about how she approached these issues of tech policy coming from a space of Instagram influencing, about how the platform i.e. Instagram itself is evolving, and about how can organizations cultivate sustained change making movements. Sukhnidh is on twitter as @skhndh.

References:

1. Sukhnidh's Privacy 101 explainer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykl8bcxFdxo&t=21s&ab_channel=InternetFreedomFoundation

2. Anja Kovack's piece on Identity and data: https://deepdives.in/when-our-bodies-become-data-where-does-that-leave-us-906674f6a969?gi=c62f48e15b67

3. Sukhnidh's Medium page: https://sukhnidh.medium.com/ 

In the 11th episode, I’m talking to Ashish Kulkarni – someone who genuinely embodies the title of this show ‘Jack of all knowledge’. Ashish is an assistant professor at the Gokhle Institute of Politics and economics, Pune. He also writes at his blog econ4everybody about economics, ideas, perspectives and everything under the sun. He also hosts a podcast called back to college in which he talks to college graduates about what they would do differently if they were again in college.

Ashish had been a dream guest for the show for a long time and it was very exciting for me to be able to host him, you’ll see shortly why. I talked to Ashish about a lot of things – about how he dropped engineering to study economics, about his passions and philosophy for education and the education system, what it means to be curious and how one can become more curious, why everyone should write, how his ideal university looks like, how he optimises for time and attention in the internet age and finally his sound advice on how to maximise soul.

By far this was the best conversation on my podcast yet, I hope you enjoy! Ashish is on twitter at @shish2727.

Links: