Does it matter what is Prashant Kishor’s qualification? For some people, qualification is never a criterion to measure their knowledge or expertise in their respective fields. Whatever degree you want to take, take but you do not become one of them simply by taking some degree. For example, no amount of degree in English can make you Sashi Tharoor. Tens of Ph.D. in music would fall short of explaining Lata Ji. What they do, they do - many a time formal education or degree may not have any correlation to their expertise or success. You wouldn’t find any logical explanation for why they are so good in their respective field.
Many of the legends didn’t have formal education or training in the field they are legends. Forget them, these are big people. Let's take some very practical and down-to-earth examples from more common people- organizations like TCS employ engineers from the Civil, Mechanical, and Electrical streams. Whereas they are a software house and should have appointed software engineers only.
So be prepared when you ask qualifications of such people. You can not measure their success by the levels of their degrees. Tharoor did his graduation History. He did his M.A. in International Relations. Tharoor further obtained his 2nd M.A. in Law and Diplomacy in 1977 and his Ph.D. in International Relations and Affairs. You can see English was not his specialization in academics. Well, his knowledge of English is a byproduct.
My knowledge of PK is limited, please get me right if you find something wrong. As far as my knowledge goes. Son of Dr. Srikant Pandey, born and brought up in Bihar, PK did his early schooling at a government school in Bihar. Yes, Prashant Kishore is the product of the same Bihar Government School that sometimes people mock at. There are reports that say the PK has done engineering from Hyderabad. However, this is not true. After 12th he got into Hindu College, Delhi University to pursue a BSc. in Statistics but went back to Bihar after falling ill and left it mid-way. Prashant Kishore has done his postgraduation in Public Health. This you can take for confirmation.
In an interview with Saurabh Dwivedi, PK revealed how he almost sat home after each crucial educational phase of his life much to his father’s dismay. Going by his words, Kishor took a break after the 12th for 3 years, left graduation mid-way, and even after he completed his graduation, he took a break for two years before doing his post-graduation. When asked what he did during his breaks, he amusingly said, almost everything that a young lad isn’t supposed to do.
After completing post-graduation in public health, Kishor began his career as a public health specialist in the United Nations. His first posting was in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh and then he was transferred to Bihar to run the Polio eradication program. Back then, Rabri Devi was Bihar’s CM. After working for 2 years, he was called at the UN Indian Office, and then after working for 2 years, he was called to work at the headquarters of the United Nations in the USA. However, he was more interested in field assignments. After 6 months at UN HQ, he was offered to work as a division head in Chad – a landlocked country in North-Central Africa where nobody wanted to go. There he worked here for almost 4 years.
After completing his tenure at Chad, he was about to shift to Geneva. During this period Prashant Kishor wrote a research paper about ‘Malnutrition in rich high growth states of India’ which had a comparison of 4 states – Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. Interestingly, Gujarat was at the bottom. It is exactly at this time; that Prashant Kishor got a phone call from Gujarat’s CM office (Narendra Modi’s office) to know why so much criticism against Gujarat. It was From there, the two got connected. Modi then invited PK to work in Gujarat on the malnutrition program. During his work on the malnutrition program, he gathered and developed intensive as well as extensive insights that could be utilized in the political platform. And his service was utilized for the 2012 Gujarat election. This is the beginning and the rest is history.
So you can see PK’s present occupation or association doesn’t have any correlation with his academics directly.
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