Network Capital

Urvashi Prasad has spent the last 15 years trying to make the world a kinder, fairer, and better place through her policy-based interventions in heathcare. Armed with degrees from Cambridge and LSTH, she worked as a director at NITI Aayog, and was awarded the India-UK Achievers Award. 

In addition to sharing principles and frameworks for building meaningful careers in public policy, Urvashi opens up about losing her beloved father and being diagnosed with cancer soon after. 

We admire her resilience and are proud to share her story with you. Here you will learn

1. How governments attempt to address systemic challenges in sectors like healthcare

2. How young professionals can carve out interesting and impactful careers in public policy 

3. How to make sense of life when you lose your beloved parent and are diagnosed with cancer

   
   

Urvashi Prasad is a public health and policy advisor with over 15 years of leadership across government, academia, and grassroots innovation. As Director in the Office of the Vice Chairperson at NITI Aayog, India’s apex policy think tank, she helped shape the country’s COVID-19 response strategy, monitor Sustainable Development Goals in real time, and spearhead national programs advancing public health, gender equity, and social inclusion.

A co-author of India’s first Voluntary National Review presented at the UN High-Level Political Forum in 2017, Urvashi’s policy insights have been featured in 150+ publications globally. She is also the British Council’s UK Alumni Ambassador for SDG 10, an Honorary Professor at De Montfort University, UK, and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network. Her accolades include the India-UK Achievers Honors and recognition among India's most influential women. In 2023, she founded Spcace by Urvashi, a pioneering platform amplifying patient voices.

Diagnosed with Stage 4 ALK-positive lung cancer at age 35, Urvashi now brings lived experience to the policy table --challenging invisibility in cancer discourse and driving recognition of under-researched malignancies in young adults. Her advocacy bridges science, storytelling, and systemic reform.

She holds a master’s in public health from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, an MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise from Cambridge University, and a Bachelor's in Biological Sciences (Genetics) from the University of Birmingham, UK. In 2024, Urvashi received an honorary doctorate for her work in public health and policy.

Esther Wojcicki is a renowned educator and journalist, best known for her transformative parenting philosophy outlined in her books

In this episode, she shares the principles that guided her as a mother to Susan Wojcicki, former CEO of YouTube, Anne Wojcicki, founder of 23andMe, and Dr Janet Wojcicki, a professor of paediatrics at UCSF.

She reflects on how childhood trauma, loss and adversity can be met with trust, respect, independence, collaboration and kindness—the values at the heart of her TRICK framework.

We also explore how her philosophy contrasts with more authoritarian approaches to parenting, such as those advanced by Amy Chua in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Esther argues that success does not require pressure or fear, but rather autonomy, connection, and trust.

Esther also discusses grief - a constant in most of our lives. This conversation goes well beyond parenting. It is about finding strength through meaning, creating space for healing, and choosing stories that uplift rather than confine. Esther’s insights offer a profound reminder that while loss is part of life, it does not have to define it.

What kind of economy does India need—not just to grow, but to serve its people with dignity and purpose? In this episode, we speak with Arun Maira, former Member of India’s Planning Commission, Chairman of BCG India, and author of Reimagining India’s Economy: An Inquiry into the Real Costs of Economic Growth.

Tracing his journey from Tata Motors to the highest levels of government, Maira reflects on what it takes to transform systems—both economic and institutional. He shares lessons from his work on industrial policy, capability-building, and ethical leadership, and calls for a bold shift away from GDP obsession toward a model grounded in inclusion, learning, and care.

We discuss:

• Why India is at a moral and economic crossroads

• What a “learning economy” looks like in practice

• How to design jobs-led growth that restores dignity to work

• Why systems thinking and listening must be central to leadership today

A compelling conversation with one of India’s most original thinkers on development, purpose, and how to shape an economy that works for everyone.

Podcast Description:
The nuclear family has become the dominant model in much of the world—but was its rise a step forward or a profound social loss?

Critics argue that the shift from joint families to nuclear households has led to loneliness, burnout, fragile caregiving systems, and the erosion of intergenerational wisdom. Joint families, they say, offered economic resilience, shared childcare, and a deep sense of belonging.

Supporters of the nuclear family, on the other hand, point to greater mobility, privacy, personal freedom, and protection from the toxic hierarchies that can exist in extended households.

In this episode, we explore the trade-offs:

• Has the nuclear family empowered individuals—or left them isolated?

• Did joint families offer support—or suppress autonomy?

• Is modern parenting sustainable without shared kin networks?

• Can we design a third path: community without control?

Private space travel once belonged in the realm of science fiction—but today, celebrities like Katy Perry are booking tickets on Blue Origin, and billionaires are launching rockets. In this episode, Dhruva and Utkarsh explore the growing role of private companies in space exploration and whether the shift away from government-led missions is cause for celebration or concern.

They delve into the tension between public and private funding: Should space exploration serve collective scientific goals or market incentives? Is "move fast and break things" the right ethos for a domain where failure can mean catastrophe? And as access to space becomes commercialized, who really benefits?

Supporters of private spaceflight argue it accelerates innovation, lowers costs, and inspires a new generation. But critics warn of widening inequalities, neglected public priorities, and the commodification of what many view as a shared human frontier.

Beyond rockets and revenue, this conversation grapples with deeper questions of purpose, responsibility, and who gets to write humanity’s next chapter among the stars.

In this episode, you will learn

• What is disability and ways in which our society discriminates against people with disabilities 

• What can do about it
• Ways to deconstruct "I am not your inspiration"

In The Anti-Ableist Manifesto, Tiffany Yu highlights the myriad ways in which our society discriminates against people with disabilities - and what we can do about it. Foregrounding disabled identities that have too often been rendered invisible, she demonstrates how ending discrimination begins with self-reflection.

From recognising biases to understanding microaggressions, The Anti-Ableist Manifesto teaches us how to deconstruct ableism at work, in our communities and within ourselves.

About this Podcast

• What did European missionaries misunderstand about Hinduism when they first arrived in India?

• How did colonial power and missionary pressure help reshape Hindu identity from within?

• Could the rise of modern Hindu nationalism be traced back to these early cultural and religious encounters?

When European missionaries arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering. Hinduism, as they saw it, was a pagan mess: a worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned women alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to crocodiles. But it quickly became clear that Hindu ‘idolatry’ was far more layered and complex than European stereotypes allowed, surprisingly even sharing certain impulses with Christianity.

Nonetheless, missionaries became a threatening force as European power grew in India. Western ways of thinking gained further ascendancy during the British Raj: while interest in Hindu thought influenced Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire in Europe, Orientalism and colonial rule pressed Hindus to reimagine their religion. In fact, in resisting foreign authority, they often adopted the missionaries’ own tools and strategies. It is this encounter, Manu S. Pillai argues, that has given Hinduism its present shape, also contributing to the birth of an aggressive Hindu nationalism.

Gods, Guns and Missionaries surveys these remarkable dynamics with an arresting cast of characters – maharajahs, poets, gun-wielding revolutionaries, politicians, polemicists, philosophers and clergymen. Lucid, ambitious, and provocative, it is at once a political history, an examination of the mutual impact of Hindu culture and Christianity upon each other, and a study of the forces that have prepared the ground for politics in India today. Turning away from simplistic ideas on religious evolution and European imperialism, the past as it appears here is more complicated – and infinitely richer – than previous narratives allow.

Selective admissions have long defined access to elite universities but a number of scholars are challenging this model, arguing that it reinforces privilege and entrenches inequality. In this episode, Dhruva and Utkarsh examine the case for replacing selective admissions with a lottery among qualified applicants. The discussion draws on John Rawls’s concept of the veil of ignorance, and Michael Sandel’s critique of meritocracy, which highlights how systems of selection often obscure privilege and foster a corrosive hubris among so-called “winners,” who come to believe their success is entirely self-made.

Advocates of the lottery system argue that it could democratize access, reduce stress and competition, and promote a more just distribution of opportunity. Critics counter that such a shift risks undermining academic standards, devaluing individual achievement, and replacing one set of biases with another.

This conversation goes beyond admissions policy and raises deeper questions about fairness, equity, and justice.

Foreign aid and reparations are terms often used interchangeably, yet they embody distinct principles and purposes. In this episode, we discuss the differences between these concepts, exploring their definitions, the potential risks of conflating them, and the implications of such conflation.

Foreign aid typically refers to financial or technical assistance provided by one nation to another, aiming to support economic development, humanitarian needs, or disaster relief. Reparations, however, are compensatory measures acknowledging and addressing historical injustices and systemic exploitation inflicted upon a nation or community. While both involve the transfer of resources, their underlying motivations and intended outcomes differ significantly.

Conflating foreign aid with reparations can lead to several risks. It may allow former colonial powers to sidestep genuine accountability by framing aid as a benevolent gesture rather than a responsibility. This conflation can also perpetuate power imbalances, as aid often comes with conditions that may not align with the recipient nation’s interests, undermining the reparative intent of acknowledging past wrongs.

To illustrate these complexities, we examine the historical and ongoing debates surrounding the United Kingdom’s colonial legacy in India. Indian politician and author Shashi Tharoor has been a vocal advocate for recognizing the economic and social damages caused by British colonial rule. In his 2015 speech at the Oxford Union, Tharoor argued that British colonialism led to the systematic deindustrialization and impoverishment of India, asserting that reparations are owed for the exploitation endured.

Tharoor’s subsequent book, An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India, delves deeper into these issues, providing a comprehensive analysis of the economic exploitation and cultural suppression during colonial rule. He emphasizes that while foreign aid from Britain to India exists, it does not equate to reparations, as it lacks the acknowledgment of historical injustices and is often guided by the donor’s strategic interests rather than the recipient’s reparative needs.

Through these discussions, we aim to shed light on the importance of distinguishing between foreign aid and reparations.

Tariffs—taxes on imports—have long been a powerful tool in economic policy, shaping global trade for centuries. But are they always harmful, or can they serve a strategic purpose?

In this episode, we trace the history of tariffs from the British East India Company to modern trade disputes between the U.S., China, India, and Europe. William Dalrymple, in The Anarchy, writes about how Britain used tariffs to cripple India’s textile industry while strengthening its own, showing how trade policy can be a tool of both economic growth and exploitation.

The debate is complex: tariffs can protect domestic industries and address unfair trade practices, but they can also raise consumer prices, stifle innovation, and provoke retaliation. Are there cases where tariffs have strengthened national economies, or do they always come at a cost?

Join us as we explore the pros and cons of tariffs, their historical impact, and whether they still have a place in today’s interconnected world.