New Delhi, 19th August 2026: Public Policy India (PPI), India’s largest community for public policy with more than 1,50,000 members, marked 6 years of building a more accessible and connected policy ecosystem with the launch of STRIDE (Strategic Research and Impact Development Enterprise) and the release of the inaugural State of Policy in India Report, 2026 at the National Policy Forum in New Delhi. Held at the India International Centre, the National Policy Forum brought together policymakers, researchers, academics, practitioners, institutions and young professionals from across the country to reflect on the questions shaping the future of public policy in India.
The Forum featured Shri Baijayant Panda, Hon’ble Member of Parliament, as Chief Guest, alongside leaders and practitioners from across India’s policy and social impact sector. The gathering included Suryaprabha Sadasivan, Managing Principal, Chase Advisors; Jhoomar Mehta, Founder, Prod.; Angela Lusigi, Resident Representative, UNDP India; Aparajita Bharti, Founding Partner, The Quantum Hub and Co-Founder, Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC); Kumar Shubham, Co-Founder and CEO, India House; and Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, Founder-Director, Foundation for People-centric Health Systems, among others.
Speaking at the National Policy Forum, Shri Baijayant Panda, Hon’ble Member of Parliament and Chief Guest, said, “The policy ecosystem today is growing dramatically. The clientele is not just members of Parliament, and it’s not just MLAs, of whom there are ten times more than members of Parliament. It extends beyond government and is increasingly being shaped by a growing number of think tanks, some well-funded and sharply focused on specific issues, while others work across broader areas of interest. All of this is creating the right kind of environment for a stronger and more diverse policy ecosystem.”
The event marked the formal launch of STRIDE (Strategic Research and Impact Development Enterprise), a new-age think tank and the institutional arm of PPI, focused on carrying India’s youth policy aspirations into research, capacity building and strategic counsel. Over the last 6 years, PPI has grown into a pan-India community of more than 1,50,000 people: gender-balanced, sector-agnostic and youth-led, with 40+ chapters across 25+ Indian cities. More than half of the community lives outside Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Speaking on behalf of Public Policy India and STRIDE, the founding team said, “A strong policy ecosystem is not built in silos, but in the intersections between them. It is in these spaces that ideas travel, perspectives meet, and new possibilities emerge. NPF is our attempt to create more of those spaces, so that conversations can grow into research, partnerships and shared action. With STRIDE, we are taking that commitment a step further by building an institution that can carry these conversations forward.”
STRIDE has been designed to translate this community into institutional work, and will operate across three core areas: research, capacity building and consulting. It builds on six years of PPI’s delivery on the ground: 130+ in-person engagements across 20+ cities in India and South Asia, and work with 80+ institutional partners spanning universities, think tanks, government bodies, businesses and civil society. The launch was accompanied by STRIDE’s first research publication, the State of Policy in India Report, 2026. Envisioned as an annual record of India’s policy and social impact ecosystem, the report documents how the sector is evolving while placing the experiences and aspirations of young people at its centre.
The inaugural edition asks what it means to enter, imagine and experience India’s policy and social impact sector today. It is built on more than 18,000 responses from policy professionals across India, gathered through the PULSE survey and community polls conducted across PPI’s city chapters, bringing community-level perspectives together with the broader national context that shapes the sector.
The 2026 edition establishes the foundation for the report to become a regular annual record of the policy ecosystem, tracking change over time and engaging with both the community and experts across education, gender, public health, technology and sustainability, with youth in policy as its connecting thread.
About Public Policy India and STRIDE
Founded in 2020, Public Policy India (PPI) has grown into a network of 1,50,000+ people across the country. Sector-agnostic and open to all, PPI engages policy enthusiasts, professionals and institutions through its WhatsApp City Chapters, Instagram and LinkedIn communities, the weekly Policy Post newsletter, in-person Policy Circles and Polis, its platform for civic engagement. PPI’s work is centred on making public policy more accessible and creating spaces where people from across sectors can learn, engage and contribute to conversations that shape public life. Its resources remain free for the community to access and use.
STRIDE (Strategic Research and Impact Development Enterprise) is PPI’s youth-policy think tank, built on the scale and diversity of its community. It carries the perspectives of young India into research, capacity building and strategic counsel for institutions shaping public life. STRIDE works to teach the craft of policy through workshops, curricula, tools and databases; undertake applied research; and provide consulting across policy research, communications and stakeholder engagement. It also works with institutions seeking to understand, engage and act on the perspectives of young India.
