Cheistha Kochar
Summer intern 2009 and
Campus coordinator for LYF

In a world where we are talking high on the women reservation bills, on the relations between India and Afghanistan, on corruption, etc, there is a 19 year old girl who’s trying to tackle issues which we never see as major enough to be given attention to. But she has managed to see and show them as the base of the larger issues that form our topic of discussion over the breakfast table. She’s trying to tackle the micro problems when we never even bother to even talk about.

Cheistha Kochhar, a 2^nd year Economics (H) student at Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University has pioneered changes at the campus level to improve governance and give the youth the voice to stand upright when they grow and take charge of nation’s governance. Selected as one of the campus coordinators by Liberal Youth Forum (LYF), she has taken steps to improve campus governance. By way of forming a LYF club in her college, which keeps a continuous link between the students and the administration, “LYF Venky” stands for inclusive and participatory campus governance. After having launched a web portal through which the student community can voice their problems and opinions to the college administration, LYF Venky is all set to introduce mobile governance in the college this year. “We want the linking factor to be mobiles for its popularity with students”, says Cheistha. Their purpose is not to create a rebellious group of any sorts but rather instil the confidence in the students from this very stage that they can voice their opinion and make a change.

It is not only at the college campus that Cheistha is trying to make a change. After having interned with Centre for Civil Society on governance issues, she has been working on the issue of “Multiple redundant helplines” and on improving the e-governance scenario in Delhi. She has made presentations to senior government officials and covered by leading national dailies on her proposal of one common intermediary helpline. One approval from the government and all the delhiites will have easy access to one number.

“I’m not any social worker. It’s just a thing I’m interested in”, says Cheistha. Along with her team members Abhishek Jain and Hemantika Verma, she has also been working on a model of Me-Governance(standing for mobile-electronic governance) as a business model that is independent of any government approval, yet can be a revolutionary step towards better governance. Me-Governance has won awards at national B-Plan contests, and is being critically reviewed by the team members every day before they can present it for implementation.

To add to her credit, Cheistha was also one of the top 24 people selected for the National Public Policy Summit in IIT Chennai. With her policy solution for transgenders, she was awarded the first position there, and covered by local newspapers. She has also published various papers in national conferences on trade, governance and law.

“I ultimately want to get into public policies, inspired by CCS. So I’ve just made an early start”, says the young policy maker, who’s all set to take reigns of the country in her own little ways.