Posted on 13 October 2026:

🎭 #YathraPulse: Current Events in Short

Diving Deep: A New Book Where Public Policy Gets Personal

What if public policy isn’t just laws and files, but the language we speak, the memories we carry, the identities we inhabit, and the quiet rhythms that shape our everyday lives?

Diving Deep: Field Notes on Public Policy and the Poetics of the Self by Dr. Swasti Pachauri invites readers into a richly reflective journey through the intersections of governance and lived experience. Written mostly during the uncertain COVID-19 years, the essays draw on fieldwork and conversations with communities across India. They blend poetry, literature and pop culture with serious policy questions.

What readers will find:

• Everyday lived experiences that show how policy is deeply personal
• Ground-level looks at exclusion, language divides and digital inequality
• Food security, rural aspirations and governance beyond academic theory
• Thinkers like Wallerstein, Debord and Baudrillard in conversation with Indian grassroots life

About the author: Dr. Swasti Pachauri has over 17 years of experience in academia, government and consulting. Her work focuses on women in agriculture, self-help groups and craft-based livelihoods. She is a Lecturer at Cornell University’s Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, and has served as Deputy Director at FICCI and Assistant Professor at B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi.

Dr. Swasti Pachauri’s journey into public policy began with a strong academic foundation. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Delhi, an M.A. in Development Studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Delhi. Her learning has never stayed within classroom walls. As a fellow in the Prime Minister’s Rural Development Programme, she spent two years living and working in rural Madhya Pradesh, and she has since worked closely with the local government of Delhi. Together, these experiences gave her a rare view of both village and city life, from urban livelihoods to food security.

Her scholarship has also taken her across borders. She was a Visiting Fellow at Osgoode Hall Law School, associated with the Institute of Feminist and Legal Studies at York University in Canada. She was also awarded the prestigious David M. Einhorn Fellowship at the Einhorn Center for Community Engagement at Cornell University in the United States.

Beyond the academy, Dr. Pachauri is a storyteller of India’s creative traditions. She is the author of a book on Indian arts and handicrafts, and her writing appears regularly in The Indian Express, Down to Earth and several Hindi publications. She is now working on her second book, a collection of case studies and narratives on women-led economic development and public policy.

Her work spans rural and urban governance, handicrafts and the arts, with a special focus on livelihoods, agrarian distress and development policy. She is deeply engaged with government schemes, especially those for women, such as self-help groups and WASH initiatives. 

In the classroom, she weaves all 17 Sustainable Development Goals into her teaching. Her teaching, writing and contributions to handicraft-based rural and urban livelihoods have consistently earned warm appreciation.

📖 Book details: 224 pages | Paperback ₹330 | Hardcover ₹649 | Publisher: Yatra Books, Vani Prakashan Group

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