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Karan Nagpal (India)

Regional Director, India

Leads IDinsight's partnerships with governments in India, trying to get them to use data and evidence when making decisions.

Karan Nagpal is the India Regional Director at IDinsight, based in New Delhi, India.

Karan leads several government partnerships in India, as well as experimental work to make data collection cheaper, faster, and more respectful for respondents. His work spans several sectors, including governance, state capacity, COVID data systems, financial inclusion, sanitation, and primary healthcare. He also strives to build and nurture IDinsight’s links to the broader academic and policy community in Delhi.

Dr. Nagpal has considerable research experience on urbanization, governance, and political economy in developing countries, particularly in India and Brazil. Prior to joining IDinsight, he has consulted with the World Bank, worked as a trade policy advisor with the Government of Vanuatu, taught economics to undergraduate students at St Peter’s College, Oxford, and acted in Love Patrol, “an immensely popular” TV series in Melanesia.

Karan holds a DPhil (PhD) and an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford, and a BA (Honors) in Economics from St Stephen’s College (Delhi), where he graduated at the top of his class. He was awarded the Inlaks scholarship for his graduate studies at Oxford.