“We want young people to have an exposure to the political system” – PRS’ Chakshu Roy on the PRS LAMP Fellowships

Delhi-based think tank, PRS Legislative Research (PRS) has recently sought applications for the organization’s LAMP Fellowships wherein each Fellow works with a Member of Parliament for eleven months. The LAMP Fellowships are now into their fourth year of existence, with applications closing on February 20, 2014..Chakshu Roy, the man behind PRS’ Law of India project, says that the Fellowships provide an ideal platform for the youth to gain first hand information on the workings of Indian politics. He says that the only two real pre-requisites for applying are an undergraduate degree and an analytical mind. “Our [LAMP] Fellows come from all sorts of backgrounds,” says Roy, “from engineering to social sciences to fashion technology.”.Part of the reason for this diverse range of applicants may be the fact that the LAMP Fellowship is not a purely academic exercise. In fact, says Roy, the Fellows have the opportunity to explore and understand the practical intricacies of both, politics and policy making. “Every profession has its own set of nuances,” says Roy, “once you know these nuances, the entire field really opens up for you.”.The other benefit of the LAMP Fellowship is that it opens up a number of avenues in related fields. For example, previous LAMP Fellows have gone on to study law, public policy, enter political parties or even set up their own entrepreneurial organisations. One LAMP Fellow, notes Roy, is now working on means to use technology in bettering communication between an MP and his constituents..When it comes to the MP’s themselves, the response has been largely positive. Roy says that the number of MP’s who now ask for a LAMP Fellow far exceeds the number of existing LAMP Fellows. “They are certainly seeing value in our LAMP Fellows,” says Roy, “a few of them have even asked for extending the 11-month tenure.”.However, increasing the number of LAMP Fellows assisting MP’s is not the primary goal of the project. “We want people to realize that politics is not a closed world,” he says, “and that these Fellowships can be a formal mechanism to enter the political system.”.Click here for more information on the LAMP Fellowships. Watch the LAMP video below.[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”22627″,”attributes”:{“alt”:”LAMP Fellowship”,”class”:”media-image”,”height”:”260″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”width”:”375″}}]]