Internship @ Foundation for Democratic Reforms, Hyderabad: Contemporary Research Work, Helpful Management, No Stipend

Name. College. Year of Study.

Swathi Potla, First Semester.

Name of the organization. City

Foundation for Democratic Reforms, Hyderabad.

Duration of the internship. No. of days/week. Timings

September 23^rd, 2013 – October 24^th, 2013

How big was the office? Team strength?

The office was spacious, with a hall where the interns work, two rooms of books and where other employees sit, a kitchen and another flat beside this office, where there’s another main office, from where interns can take the required stationery e.t.c.

Application procedure. Internship contact details

A write-up on any of the topics mentioned in the website of the organization i.e. www.fdrindia.org along with the CV must be emailed to communications@fdrindia.org

Accommodation: how, where, how was it?

I am a resident of Hyderabad, so accommodation to me wasn’t a problem, other outstation interns can avail accommodation facilities in various PGs that are located in Begumpet, Banjara hills, or Jubilee hills.

First impression. First day, formalities etc.

This was my first internship, so I was pretty tensed, I’ve seen a few other interns, whom I thought to be employees and wished them and was almost about to show my CV, later was informed that they were interns too!

I had to sign an agreement that all the work done wouldn’t be disclosed any where and would be confidential.

Main tasks 

Main tasks included in-depth research on various contemporary issues. Personally, I have researched on Police reforms, Judicial reforms and prepared reports. Daily news monitoring from various news papers is every intern’s task.

I’ve also compiled a few articles for the organizations yearbook, and written an article. We also had a field work which was optional called Surajyam, which is an event of FDR that focuses on Growth and Development, a little specifically in Rural areas and it’s main aim is Good Governance.

Work environment, people

The employees of the organization are very cool and always ready to help, I used to go to Fathima ma’am for any clarification and she gladly explained me.

Best things? 

Best thing was the location, so many amazing food joints around!

Bad things?

The only bad thing was that I stayed far from the office.

What did you do to chill? Co-interns, colleagues

We went to various restaurants that were beside or we asked the boy in the office to get food for us to chill, and it was real fun, I had a really lovely set of co-interns from various colleges and fields and we also had an intern from Denmark.

Stipend/month

No stipend

Anything else you’d like to tell; Biggest lessons

It was a great learning opportunity, met different kinds of people and learnt a lot from each one of them, particularly Dr.Jayaprakash Narayan.