The Quantum Hub

Yesterday at the UN House in Delhi, UN Women and The Quantum Hub (TQH) hosted a workshop for the incoming batch of Legislative Assistants to Members of Parliament (LAMPs). The workshop focused on gender-responsive policymaking and gender budgeting. Discussion points included key legislative frameworks impacting women over time, applying a gender lens to parliamentary schemes, utilising data for evidence-driven policymaking, and engaging with the gender budget in the Budget process. It was great to engage with the newest cohort of LAMPs who are all set for an action-packed year! PRS Legislative Research Kanta Singh M R Madhavan Aparajita Bharti Dr.Sanghamitra Dhar Sanya Seth Shraddha Chickerur, PhD Mitisha Sharma Sonakshi Chaudhry Devika Oberai Natasha Singh Prakriti Singh LAMP Fellowship Namita Bhandare

We're back with our #teamspotlight series! Meet Ujval Mohan, Senior Analyst - Public Policy at The Quantum Hub, and read about his journey in the policy sector: “Spending needless hours down a rabbit hole to understand why things are the way they are, and how they could be better, is a personal ‘quirk’ of mine—one I frequently defend. I assumed it would vanish as I grew up and adulted my way through college and jobs. Stubbornly, it remained with me throughout law school and then as a commercial lawyer, egging me on to explore the world as much as I could, but this time through the lens of legal concepts and doctrines, all while equipping me to understand just how pervasive policy and governance are in one’s life. Working at TQH has helped channel this instinct to think about issues deeply from different perspectives and push myself to do better each day! Doing that while working with a team that is brilliant yet warm, efficient yet kind, makes me smile as I walk into work every day. Thanks to TQH, I have been able to turn my quirk into my job, analysing the world around me. Needless to say, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time working at TQH, primarily on technology and gender-related projects.”

On the occasion of World Population Day, we revisit an article our team wrote for Dainik Jagran last year. On World Population Day 2024, the focus is on collecting inclusive data – counting everyone, everywhere, as they are. In an unpredictable world, with rapid population growth, ageing populations, and challenges like climate change and conflicts, reliable population data is crucial for addressing the needs of those left behind. Shubham Mudgil and Rohit Kumar from The Quantum Hub (TQH) team discuss the need to view India's development through the lens of its growing population. In the article, the authors use data from the Economic Survey 2018-19 and the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2019-21 to analyse access to basic services such as water, electricity, and adequate nutrition in India. While most of the population now has access to electricity and drinking water, challenges remain in areas like clean cooking fuel, adequate nutrition for infants, and education for women. You can read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/gPRjTGUD #WorldPopulationDay

We're excited that Rhydhi Gupta, Analyst, Public Policy at The Quantum Hub (TQH), is participating in #APIGA2024. The Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA) is a capacity-development program focused on Internet governance for young people from the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. APIGA is co-hosted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA). The program is being held this week in Busan, South Korea.

Last week, Rohit Kumar, Founding Partner at The Quantum Hub (TQH), participated in the Centre for Internet and Society's conference on the 'Future of the Commons', organised in collaboration with the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL). On a panel alongside linguists, technologists, Wikipedians, and entrepreneurs, he discussed digital inclusion, AI, and Indic languages. Rohit emphasised the importance of digital inclusion and highlighted how increasing content availability in Indic languages can enhance access, break class barriers, and promote social mobility. At the conference, attendees also discussed the necessity of developing Indic language models tailored to South Asia's distinct linguistic characteristics, sentence structures, and nuances, while addressing the challenge of inadequate quality datasets in India.

In light of the extreme and sudden weather conditions we have been witnessing lately, it is crucial to recognise the gendered impact of climate change. In this essay by the Observer Research Foundation, the authors discuss the gendered impacts of heatwaves and water scarcity in India, underscoring the urgent need for comprehensive strategies that prioritise the well-being and empowerment of women and girls. Recent studies highlight that Indian women are notably more vulnerable to extreme temperatures compared to men, amplifying existing gender disparities in health, economic opportunity, and educational access. The combined effects of heatwaves and water scarcity impact women's roles in agriculture and household water collection, increasing health risks and reducing economic productivity. Effective measures must include gender-sensitive policies, promoting women's leadership in climate resilience, and improving access to resources. You can read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/gJjmVpBw

It's a wrap! At The Quantum Hub (TQH), our policy team was tracking women's participation in the General Elections 2024. Here’s the Final Factsheet of the Women in #Elections2024 series. We examine the participation of women electors in the just-concluded elections across all states and union territories. The overall voter turnout in General Elections 2024 was 65.79%, with male voter turnout at 65.80% and female voter turnout at 65.78%. This marks a drop from the 2019 elections when the female voter turnout (67.18%) surpassed the male voter turnout (67.02%). Lakshadweep recorded the highest female voter turnout at 85.47%, followed by Assam (81.71%) and Tripura (80.57%). Mizoram had the lowest female voter turnout at 55.67%, followed by Jammu and Kashmir (56.38%) and Gujarat (56.56%). Nine states and union territories had higher female voter turnout than male voter turnout. Dhubri (Assam) had the highest female voter turnout in the country at 92.17%, while the lowest female voter turnout was in Srinagar at 33.21%. Dhubri also recorded the highest male voter turnout at 91.99%. All our factsheets covering women registered voters, phase-wise women candidates, elected women MPs and promises made for women in manifestos can be found here: https://lnkd.in/gSeXyUwN Analysis by Arun Sudarsan, Sohinee Thakurta, Teesta Shukla, and Akshat Sogani.   #WomeninPolitics #GeneralElections2024 #WomeninLeadership Nidharshana Raju Yamini Atmavilas Centre for Social Research India Rahesha Sehgal Angellica Aribam Feminism In India Namita Bhandare Kanksshi Agarwal (She/They) Nandita Venkatesan Pragyaa Rai (she/her) Ruhi Kandhari Mitali Nikore Mitali Mukherjee Nishtha Anand Shagun Sabarwal Divya J Shekhar Sumedha Mittal Suneeta Kar Dhar Kalpana Viswanath UN Women BehanBox Bhanupriya Rao Rohit Kumar Aparajita Bharti

Recently, Mahwash Fatima, Manager at The Quantum Hub (TQH), attended a two-day workshop on Generative AI (GenAI) and the Future of Work hosted by Digital Futures Lab. This workshop was meant to discuss the unique characteristics of the Indian economy and labour market. The event focused on identifying the challenges and opportunities that GenAI might bring to the future of work in India. It explored how these impacts could vary across different sectors, geographies, and social groups. Experts from diverse disciplines participated in round table discussions and spoke of innovative, forward-looking techniques such as constructing short stories to reflect different personas and creating policy artefacts. Urvashi Aneja

The United Nations General Assembly has designated 27 June as “Micro-, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises Day” to raise public awareness of the tremendous contributions of MSMEs to sustainable development. On the occasion of MSME Day, we are highlighting LEAD at Krea University's report, "Minding the Gender Gap in MSME Credit." Women-run MSMEs constitute only 20% of India’s dynamic MSME sector, totalling 2.8 million. This study examines the factors contributing to the financing gap for women-led enterprises. It provides insights from a survey of over 800 MSMEs led by both women and men, seeking credit exceeding INR 10 lakhs in FY 22-23. Key challenges identified include structural and entry-level barriers for women, skewed business ownership, gendered access to networks, and discriminatory credit practices. Read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/gbAHSvQs #MSMEDay #WorldMSMEDay2024

Last evening, The Quantum Hub (TQH) & Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) teams swapped spreadsheets for paintbrushes and unleashed their inner artists! We were thrilled to find so many hidden Picassos among us. Swipe to see the team sip and paint away the mid-week blues!