Giving Public Policies a Lay Man Vision: The Indian Iris

When you have an idea there will be a 100 people saying, “It won’t work out”, and that “you can’t change people” etc. And then you will find the 101th person who will resonate with your idea.

Sahitya Sindhu, is one of the very few in our country, who wanted to make a real difference to the country ever since she started thinking about her career.

“I have never had ambitions like going abroad to pursue higher education, getting a fat paycheque or working in a fancy glass building in Manhattan street!”

For someone who had all the opportunities and caliber to do whatever she wanted, Sahitya chose the path less travelled! An alumni of IIIT Bangalore, she was always academically oriented and very grounded as a person. It’s a very rare combination!

She would discuss country, politics and various burning issues with her cousin. It triggered that there is a lack of knowledge regarding public policies and schemes amongst people. She decided to change that.

“We got in touch with Narayanan Singh Rao & Ritesh Kothari, who had similar thoughts, and started this platform called the Indian Iris. Today we are a balanced team of 10 people, comprising of analysts, engineers, and people from business administration! Nachiket , Shreya and Shivam are our Policy Research Analysts who have played an instrumental role in creating content!”

The Indian Iris: The Single Reference Point for all Government Schemes & Policies

It is a comprehensive platform which aims at shedding light on the ongoing initiatives, policies and schemes of the Government of India (GOI) and those of the State Governments. Their huge database, provides a platform where one can search and discover various policies and schemes of the government. This shall include both welfare schemes such as scholarships, pensions, etc as well as business schemes such as subsidies, grants, loans and several other schemes suited for Micro Small Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs).

The Inspiration Behind the Concept

Each and every person at the Indian Iris believes that the new source of power is not money in the hands of few, but Information in the hands of many. The information we provide is the first step towards empowerment and access is the second.

About Sahitya (Co-Founder www.theindianiris.com)

Studies say that women are far more depressed than men. Immense amount of emotional stability is required to be proficient in any field. I feel Yoga and meditation really help in removing negativity from life. They increase focus and help you tackle stress!

Working Woman Woes!  

“And then there are people around you who will ask you to get married once you reach 22-23 years. I won’t say that getting married would be a hurdle to your career , but it comes with lot of other responsibilities. You should be ready to handle both!”

On Handling Criticism! 

People around you will pull you down, criticize what you do , but it is very important that you believe in yourself. One must realise that your idea and vision is stronger and bigger than others opinions.

When I conceived the idea and started working on it, I was surrounded by a lot of confusion. Many people gave me a negative feedback, and there was a point where I was left wondering, if I am doing the right thing. I started doubting whether I would be able to do anything further.

To be honest, I might have slowed down, but I never stopped. I realised that if you stop, it takes double the energy and motivation to begin again!

What Inspires Sahitya..

“When things don’t happen right away, just remember it takes 6 months to build a Rolls Royce and 13hours to build a Toyota”

And there’s no looking back!!

The Indian Iris has a team of Policy Research Analysts, who have been working to collect reliable information on various schemes from various states on various departments, then analyse the schemes , tag the particular set of audience so that information is not mere data but is mined as knowledge when people visit our site.

With the growing awareness of “digital India” and efforts to make India truly Digital the Indian Iris team is using machine learning and other advanced techniques to render information from data and provide suggestions to the users based on their profile, geographic location and other relevant categories.