Policy is written for you. Now help write it.
युवा बोलेंगे। नीति बनेगी।
Policy Labs is a people's movement by Friends of UP that connects the people who live with a policy to the people who write it. Send one practical suggestion — the problem, the fix, and who should act on it.
What is Policy Labs
Policies are written in offices. They are lived on the ground.
By the student whose course doesn't lead to a job, the farmer a scheme never reached, the young founder stuck in paperwork. Policy Labs connects the two. It is an open platform where anyone can send a suggestion. We check the facts, bring the strongest ideas to public discussion, and take them to the departments that can act.
How it works
From the people who live the problem, to the people who can fix it.
- 1Suggest
Anyone sends one practical idea
The problem, the fix, and who would have to act on it — in 150 words, in Hindi or English.
- 2Discuss
The strongest face the questions
Selected suggestions are presented at Policy Labs Discussions on campus, cross-questioned by an economist, an employer and a startup founder.
- 3Refine
We check the facts and the costs
Our researchers check what each idea would take, what it would cost, and who is responsible for acting on it.
- 4Submit
Taken to the people who make policy
Suggestions are published with their authors named and submitted to the departments that can act on them.
Open call · UP's Youth Policy
Send your suggestion. Win an Amazon gift card.
Tell us the problem, the fix, and who would have to act on it — in 150 words, in Hindi or English. Our reading panel shortlists the strongest to present at a Policy Labs Discussion; the three best win.
Amazon gift cards · ₹10,000 in prizes
- ₹5,000Best idea · individual
- ₹3,000Second
- ₹2,000Third
Judged on the written suggestion and on how it holds up to the guests' questions on stage. Every suggestion is published, with its author named, in the Student Suggestions Paper.
What a good suggestion looks like
- 1
Be specific. “Improve education” is not a suggestion. “Let a final-year internship count as one elective” is.
- 2
Name who would act. A college, a university board, a department, an employer. A guess is fine — our researcher confirms it.
- 3
Say how you would know it worked. One number that would change within a year.
The first open call
The UP Decade, and the Decade Ahead.
Uttar Pradesh has been rebuilt over the past decade — expressways, an international airport, a defence corridor, electronics plants and data centres. The state is now preparing an integrated Youth Policy: one policy for the students who will carry the decade ahead.
An integrated Youth Policy reads education, employability, skills, enterprise, technology, health and participation as one stage of life rather than eight departmental subjects — which is how a student actually experiences them.
The detail of what works and what does not sits with students: which scheme never reached them, which course teaches the wrong thing, which door was closed. Policy Labs collects that while the policy is still being drafted.
The Youth Policy, in short
Announced 15 August 2026 by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath — one integrated policy for ages 16–35, in place of scattered schemes.
Covers education and skills, employment, entrepreneurship and innovation, digital empowerment, health, sports, leadership and culture — with AI, robotics and cyber security named as training priorities.
A State Youth Commission of experts is proposed to review youth programmes before the policy is finalised.
UP follows Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, and will be the largest state with a youth policy.
Jobs & apprenticeships
AI & future skills
Entrepreneurship
Education & employability
An event of
Public dialogues held across Uttar Pradesh by Friends of UP
UP Dialogues · On campus
Policy Labs Discussions
Where the strongest suggestions face the questions.
Part of the UP Dialogues events happening around the state. Selected students present their suggestions from the stage and are cross-questioned by an economist, an employer and a startup founder, in front of their classmates.
- Minutes
- 120Minutes
- Students, aged 18–29
- 300–400Students, aged 18–29
- Paper, in your name
- 1Paper, in your name
- In Amazon vouchers
- ₹10,000In Amazon vouchers
- Cost to students
- ₹0Cost to students
The two hours
One afternoon. Every minute has a job.
Timings in minutes from the start of the session.
Certificates for everyone who attends; up to three paid research fellowships.
00–13 min
The UP Decade, and the Decade Ahead
The session opens with the film. Then, Now, Next — ten years of the state and the ten ahead, every claim sourced on screen.
13–28 min
Ceremonial opening
Lamp lighting, welcome, felicitation, chief guest address, handover to the chair.
28–45 min
Setting the stage
Three invited guests — an economist, an employer and a startup founder — explain what the upcoming integrated Youth Policy covers and what it has to get right, five minutes each.
45–85 min
Student suggestions on stage
Six or seven selected students present one at a time. The guests cross-question each student and discuss the idea — what it would take, who would have to act, whether it can be done.
85–100 min
Open floor
Roving mics for any student in the hall who wants to speak. Everyone else writes their suggestion on a slip collected from the rows.
100–108 min
Judging
The guests decide the prizes while the hall completes scoring slips.
108–120 min
Close
Prizes presented by the chief guest, vote of thanks, group photograph.
Host a Policy Labs Discussion
You bring the hall. We bring everything else.
Your college provides
- An auditorium seating 300–400, with stage, screen and sound, for one afternoon.
- A named coordinator — a few hours a week for about two weeks.
- Filling the hall — circulating the call on campus and to neighbouring institutions.
- Chief guest and felicitation to your own protocol.
- 8–10 student volunteers for roving mics and suggestion slips, briefed by us on the day.
Friends of UP provides
- The full programme — chair, researcher, a speaker coach for the selected students and note-takers.
- The film and briefing, sourced and dated.
- The three guests — economist, employer and startup founder — briefed and confirmed.
- All materials — stage backdrop and event banners, standees and signage, submission form, evidence brief, suggestion slips, delegate badges, certificates, consent forms and the survey.
- The paper — compilation, evidence check, student review, bilingual final copy and the departmental cover brief.
What your college ends up with
The Student Suggestions Paper.
One document, in your institution's name. Bilingual, formatted for departmental submission.
- 01The participation record
- 02Every suggestion received, with its author named
- 03The recommendations, with the institution responsible for each
- 04What the guests said was possible on stage
- 05The points the hall disagreed on
Two things and we can confirm the date: a named coordinator, and an afternoon in your auditorium.
Friends of UP confirms the guests, the team, the film and all materials once the date is agreed.
Allow at least two weeks between confirmation and the event, so the call for suggestions can run for a week and the selected students can be briefed.
The first edition is proposed at SR Group of Institutions, Lucknow.