Leadership & Influence QuestionChevening is looking for individuals that will be future leaders or influencers in their home countries. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to suppor

I was born in Kolkata but raised in the northeast with people of a different culture, learn their ways and adapt with them. At a tender age, I was introduced to the elements of leadership. Being the class monitor during my school days, I had to manage student grievances by reporting the class teacher and fulfil class resources like chalk, duster and chart papers from school repositories. I see leadership as something that you earn when you prioritize others interest in place of yours. This belief led me to donate blood in voluntary blood donation camp organised by State Blood Transfusion Council, West Bengal.

My present job in Bank of Maharashtra from 2015 till date, has taught me a lot about working in a group, thus taking care of each other. Being a member of All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) I took an active part in fighting for the rights of security guards in our bank, who were governed by a third-party security agency. To protest against their layoffs, we observed strikes even when that led to deduction of our salaries for the respective strike days. Promoting sustainable economic growth and decent work for all is the need of the hour for increasing employment opportunities and reducing informal employment and Chevening will further solidify my take towards this sustainable goal.

In my college days I presented several papers and had done projects as a part of the curriculum tasks. Often these activities were performed in groups of five or six members. During such situations I established an understanding with my teammates and eventually led them towards task completion with good results. Following this interest, I authored several papers during 2015-19, which included a paper entitled ‘Gamification: a smart rejoinder to workforce happiness through discretionary effort’. The paper was co-authored by two more fellows, but I got the opportunity to present it amongst specialized audiences in the International HR Conference on HR Trends 2030 organised by Indian Institute of Social Welfare & Business Management. The conference was chaired by several dignitaries from the industry and the academic world. My paper was placed with four other papers under the theme HR Analytics, Artificial Intelligence & Advanced Modeling in HR. During my presentation I justified to my learned audience, the purpose of my paper and its outcome through the conclusion. The chairperson further validated my point and gave valuable feedback. Lifelong learning opportunities and equitable quality education is a birth right of every human-being. Being a Chevening scholar I will enhance my learning opportunities and this in return will enable me to spread my experience in my country. Thus, inspiring and leading people towards quality education.

During my enrolment in Arena Animation Shyambazar for learning 2D-3D design in the year 2016 -17, I got an opportunity to represent my centre in Orbit Live 2017, which is an annual animation industry event held in Mumbai where delegates from several countries including UK, attended. I competed in the 3D Modeling category with two other students in my team from Mumbai. All the students were grouped in teams of three, as the task required teamwork for completion. We had to divide the task in smaller sections to prioritize how much time we should spend to complete each section. The task needed dexterity with computer graphics software, cooperation amongst members, decision-making for task execution and self-evaluation. Cooperation amongst members phase had its hurdles, but I learned to interact with people of a different ethnicity in the process, thus together we achieved a common goal. This experience taught me cooperation in a small scale as well as internationally among countries that made this event possible. Revitalising the global partnership for sustainable development will increase the official development assistance (ODA) to ensure that developing countries get the means of implementation from developed countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Chevening Scholarship will enhance my knowledge towards this field with its common objectives of strengthening global peace, security and governance and building public and civic leaders to reform and improve the same.