Krittika Dirghangi
I am Krittika Dirghangi, a final semester master’s student at TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi. I am completing my degree in Environmental and Resource economics very soon and actively looking for research opportunities in the field of Agricultural Economics and policy. I have been working on research projects since my undergraduate years and developed a quick inclination for the same. My first research experience was my undergraduate dissertation, where I worked on “A State-wise Study on the Infant Mortality Rates in India”, a project through which I learnt the basics of research, literature reviews, `using STATA for regression analysis, Choropleth maps, trendline analyses, to name a few. The study was published in March 2022, with the help of my HOD at Presidency University, Dr Mousumi Dutta. I joined TERI SAS after learning about its highly research-oriented academic programme and in these two years, I have been trained as a researcher who specializes in environmental and resource economics, with a special paper on Indian Agriculture.
I have worked as a Research Assistant at IIM Calcutta under Dr Aditi Bhutoria, for 10 months, where I worked on two projects in Education economics and policymaking under her guidance. Working as an RA gave me more exposure into the world of policymaking and research methodologies in development economics, such as analysing large datasets, and writing policy reviews and systematic literature reviews. Last year, I worked as a Summer Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi on “The Impact of the land acquisition in Singur, West Bengal, on the agricultural income of the farmers”. In the course of that project, I have done primary surveys, which was the gateway to my interest in the field of agricultural economics. Looking into the lives of the small and marginal farmers of West Bengal and becoming aware of the various problems they are facing in agriculture was insightful and motivating. After completing the surveys, I actively started reading papers and tried to stay updated on the work that was being done by the various agricultural economists in the world. I am also currently working on my master’s thesis, where I am exploring “Feminization of Agriculture in the context of Jute Cultivation: Causes and Implications”. In this project, I have surveyed a tribal village in the Nadia district of West Bengal, Nafarchandrapur, known for its high rate of female participation in agriculture. I am calculating an empowerment index, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI-A), formulated by IFPRI, to quantify the impact of the increased participation of women in agriculture besides doing a cross-sectional analysis of the causes of feminisation across the households in the village.
I am highly motivated to be a researcher in agricultural economics and policy.