Cambridge students to work with Tata group in India

These students, who already left for India, have been selected to join an international student internship programme run by Tata Sons.

The University of Cambridge and the University of California, Berkeley, had signed an agreements with Tata Sons last year to take part in the Tata International Social Entrepreneurship Scheme (TISES).

The programme offers students a distinctive experiential internship in the ongoing corporate sustainability projects of Tata companies in India, enabling them to learn about living, working and contributing to development in rural India.

In return, interns bring international perspectives and practices to these projects.

Sian Herschel, who has just completed her MBA at Judge Business School and Clare College, will be working in villages around Jamshedpur.

She will explore the social and economic development of women in self-help groups through micro-finance. Nick Evans, social anthropology graduate from King's College, has a keen interest in India. He had visited Mumbai last summer to research the ethnography of laughter yoga.

He will work at Tata Chemicals' plant in Babrala, 80 kilometres east of Delhi.

Like Sian, Andrew Panton who studied Law at Downing College will be based around Jamshedpur.

He will be doing an impact assessment study of an ongoing project in Jharkhand that focuses on land and water management.

Rosalynn Watt, who has just completed a PhD in Chemical Engineering at Emmanuel College, will also be based in Jamshedpur. She has never been to India before and has always wanted to go as her grandfather once worked in nearby Kolkata.

David Nefs, who has just graduated with a First in Economics at Churchill College, will be working in Mithapur to make a blueprint to improve the current Human Development Index of the core villages of the project.

"Through TISES our students have the opportunity to make a real contribution to people's lives in India as well as discovering much about this fascinating country," Helen Haugh of Judge Business School said.