Creating an Indian Bureaucracy for the 21st Century

A Conversation with Yamini Aiyar

Recorded in September 2018

Global Futures is a podcast about global politics and how rising powers like China and India are transforming it. We discuss foreign policy, economics, war and peace, and how the world is changing with experts from across the world.

India aspires to a global leadership role and expansion of its already rapidly growing economy. At the same time, the country faces developmental challenges around access to food, education and health care. India’s bureaucracy has been criticized for not being nimble, adaptable and/or innovative enough to deal with these challenges. So what would the administration have to look like in order to be able to tackle India’s challenges and goals? And how can a bureaucracy which is so criticized for being unadaptable be reformed?

In this episode, Thorsten Benner from the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) talks to Yamini Aiyar, President and Chief Executive at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. She is a founder of the Accountability Initiative at CPR, which produces research in the areas of governance, state capacity and social policy. Previously, Yamini has also been a member of the World Economic Forum’s global council on good governance, and has worked with the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program and Rural Development unit in Delhi, where she focused on action research aimed at strengthening mechanisms for citizen engagement in local government.

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