Google Inc has come to announce that the company has hired former think tank employee, Archana Gulati as the firm’s policy head. Before this, she was employed at Watchdog, a Think Tank under Mr. Narendra Modi where she had a very fruitful stint.
The experienced lady joins a whole host of other public workers who quite their job in the public sector to work at a big tech firm. As India tightens their grip on data rules and other regulations for privacy, the government is slowly letting go of the huge talent pool that they have created to private tech companies.
she has had a long and well-respected stint working under the government where she even worked for Niti Aayog as the their joint secretary for digital communications.
Niti Aayog is the nation’s top think tank and public policy institution that works on collecting important data, statistics and interpreting them in a fair manner which is used to boost the economy, foster development, and help India grow.
Prior to her work there, she was employed at the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for two years, from. CCI is an antitrust body which ensures that companies that set up India play by the rules and regulations and make sure that there is free and healthy competition between the competitors.
Watchdog right now, is probing Google India due to their marketing and business actions in the sale of the company’s smart TVs, it’s OS and their in-app payments structure.
Rajiv Aggarwal, who was the head of policy for the union and state governments also jumped ship to another massive tech company in Meta, last year in 2021.
Anand Jha who worked closely with Mr. Rajiv Aggarwal in the same department also quit the public sector and took up a role as a public policy official for Walmart India, 3 years ago in 2019. Walmart India currently owns about 77% stake in e-commerce company Flipkart. He currently works at Blackstone as public relations officer. Blackstone is an American investment managing company based in New York City.
The scores of people quitting the government to go work in more fulfilling and lucrative jobs which should be of great worry for the government. most of the private firms that these individuals have moved to are also international ones resulting in brain drain which is a huge loss for India which invested a lot to educate them. They need to figure ways to keep the talent pool of India with them by making the jobs more lucrative, more attractive and with more perks so that the country grows, stays healthy and innovative.