Nandita Venkatesan

MSc Public Policy 2020
Journalist and Health Advocate

Nandita Venkatesan wears many hats with élan: she is currently a data journalist with The Mint—one of India’s biggest financial newspapers—where she works on making sense of the story behind the numbers, a vocal health advocate, and a trained Indian classical dancer.

Life’s curveballs are no stranger to her. She fought an agonising battle against two rounds of tuberculosis through her late-teens and early 20s—the second episode proving to be life-threatening. She ended up being hospitalized for three months with multiple complications, was bedridden for over a year, and, in the cruellest cut of all, lost much of her hearing at 24 due to a rare and unexplained side effect of a TB-related injection.

Determined not to be defeated, she took up dancing by teaching herself to convert music into numbers, started working with a business newspaper to gain financial independence, and also ventured into health advocacy. Nandita has spearheaded several national and global advocacy efforts to raise awareness about the disease and mainstream patient voices by collaborating with key national and international figures. She has addressed several prestigious forums including the 2018 United Nations General Assembly in New York, the MSF Scientific Day and the Union World Conference on Lung Health, and was the youngest member of the WHO Civil Society Task Force on TB. She was profiled twice by the renowned medical journal The Lancet, which applauded her for “turning personal trauma into greater good” and called her a “voice of hope for TB survivors”.

Oxford came calling in 2020 when she received the Chevening-Weidenfeld Hoffmann scholarship to study Public Policy. As a Weidenfeld-Hoffmann scholar at Keble, she cherished the opportunity to interact and learn from people from vastly different backgrounds than hers and is grateful to Keble for making efforts to be inclusive for persons with disabilities.

This portrait was made remotely via Zoom from Oxford. Fran directed Nandita at her home in Mumbai and then created the image by photographing her computer screen.