Patna, May 14: Vatsala Shreeti, a 23-year-girl with Bihar roots, has got admission into the Toulouse School of Economics, Universite de Toulouse, France, for a four-year doctoral programme in economics and policy-making.
She has also been selected for the prestigious Jean-Jacques Laffont Scholarship awarded by the Jean-Jacques Laffont Foundation, which is headed by Jean Tirole, a Nobel laureate in economics.
The foundation is affiliated to the Toulouse School of Economics. The scholarship includes full tuition fee of 8000 Euros and is awarded to meritorious students from developing countries with outstanding academic excellence. Vatsala will also get a chance to teach undergraduate and postgraduate students at the premier institution.
Vatsala's father Vijay Kumar Jha is chief engineer at the military engineer's service, ministry of defence. The family is from Darbhanga and lives in Delhi. "Toulouse School of Economics is highly acclaimed. It ranks among the top 20 schools for economics in the world," Vatsala told The Telegraph over phone from Delhi.
"The doctoral programme is research-oriented and involves in-depth training to engage students in both qualitative and quantitative economic analysis. I'm really delighted to have made it to such a prestigious institution." She will leave for France in August. "My dissertation would be on price discrimination, its impact on consumer choice, and the welfare of the digital economy in India," she said.
Vatsala did her post-graduation from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2014. She also won the Angeli Qwatra Prize for being the best student of science and humanities in 2013 and the Mallan Devi Bhalla Prize for being the best student of economics while graduating from Miranda House, University of Delhi, in 2012.
Currently working at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, Vatsala is also a consultant with the Social Protection and Labour Team at the World Bank Group, New Delhi.
About her future plans, she said: "I want to continue with research work in economics and want to dig out the potential of India's ongoing digital revolution. Though recognised and prioritised in flagship government schemes, there is very little evidence-based research that examines the impact of digital technologies on welfare, governance and market competition in India. As internet penetration expands, and commerce becomes electronic, numerous complex policy questions arise which need rigorous quantitative and qualitative analysis to be answered. The work that I hope to do at Toulouse will be one of the first steps towards obtaining a dynamic understanding of competition policy and welfare in the context of India's digital economy."
