A civil servant learning to code.
A thinker shaping governance.

I began my career as a veterinary doctor — trained to heal, to observe, and to serve at the most elemental level of life. It was honest work, and it shaped me. But somewhere along the way, a larger calling took shape.

I stepped into the civil services arena and cleared India’s premier Civil Service examination, thrice — the Indian Postal Service (2002), the Indian Police Service (2003), and finally the Indian Administrative Service (2004), securing an All India Rank of 42. It was never about the success of selection; it was about choosing the path that would allow me to create the widest impact, and I chose the Indian Administrative Service.

That choice brought me to Uttarakhand — a young, fragile, and breathtaking Himalayan state still finding its administrative and developmental rhythm. For over a decade, I worked at the grassroots, serving as Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Chief Development Officer, and eventually District Magistrate of Uttarkashi, Udham Singh Nagar, and Dehradun — districts with populations of up to two million. I learned governance not from files, but from lived experience: distributing 2,000 housing plots to families below the poverty line after a decade-long stalemate, enrolling 5,000 beneficiaries under the National Old Age Pension scheme, admitting 3,000 children to private schools under the Right to Education Act in its inception year.

In 2013, when the Kedarnath disaster struck the Himalayas, I was appointed as Relief Commissioner and coordinated the crisis response during the most challenging time of my career. That experience taught me something no textbook could: real governance means being present when everything else fails.

After that, I joined the Government of India and spent more than seven years working across five Union Ministries. I served as Private Secretary to three Union Ministers in the Ministries of Education, Civil Aviation, Tourism, and Parliamentary Affairs, and later as Deputy Secretary and Director. My time in the Ministry of Education was especially meaningful. I helped shape the National Education Policy 2020, a major reform that changed India’s education system after 34 years. I also worked on the National Civil Aviation Policy and the National Tourism Policy, which gave me a unique view of how the Executive and Legislature work together.

Looking back, my journey has been less about the titles I’ve held and more about taking on greater responsibility, one decision at a time.

Around 2017 and 2018, I felt a quiet but important change. I went to the University of California, Berkeley, for a Master’s in Public Affairs, and also spent time at the International Anti-Corruption Academy and as a Chevening Fellow at Oxford’s Saïd Business School. Berkeley, especially, changed how I saw the world.

There, I discovered data science and behavioural economics, not just as academic fields, but as practical tools. They were sharp, precise, and eye-opening. These tools helped me understand why good policies sometimes fail in real life. For the first time, I could clearly see the gap between what governments plan and what people actually experience.

When I came back, I couldn’t see governance the same way anymore. Just running systems wasn’t enough. I questioned them, rethought how they were built, and, when needed, rebuilt them to be smarter and more attuned to real life.

That realisation started a new chapter for me. I began teaching myself machine learning, Python, and applied AI, taking it step by step from the basics. I also started writing at basavapurushottam.com about the foundations of AI — not just as a new technology, but as a force that can change how we think about governance, decision-making, and society as a whole.

That same curiosity has now taken book form. My forthcoming work, “Your Brain Runs on Old Software” (upgradeurbrain.com), distils 13 principles from modern neuroscience into a new way of looking at life — a quiet argument that most of us are still running mental operating systems designed for a world that no longer exists, and that an upgrade is both possible and overdue.

Today, I serve concurrently as Secretary to the Government of Uttarakhand, holding portfolios across Animal Husbandry, Dairy, Agriculture, and as Chief Electoral Officer of the state under the Election Commission of India. Two roles, two very different rhythms: one rooted in the long, patient work of building rural and agrarian systems; the other in safeguarding the most fundamental act of democracy itself. Together, they continue to teach me that governance is, in the end, an exercise in balancing the everyday and the foundational.

Increasingly, my work is moving toward the intersection of public policy and frontier technology — exploring how AI can transform agricultural credit, predictive crisis management, and rural service delivery in India.

The veterinary student who once learned to listen carefully to creatures who cannot speak still lives somewhere inside the administrator. Perhaps that is why I keep returning, again and again, to the same question: how do we build systems that actually hear the people they are meant to serve?

I read widely, and I read slowly — mostly non-fiction, drawn to Probability and Information Theory, Systems Thinking, Neuroscience, and the writers who challenge how I think about Uncertainty, Risk, and Human Behaviour. YouTube has quietly become a primary source of learning too — long-form lectures, interviews, and explanations now sit alongside the books. Mornings are reserved for a walk or a jog — though I’ve been honest about how difficult it often is to get out of bed.

I live and work in Dehradun, in the foothills of the Himalayas. The mountains are a good reminder that governance is not the largest thing in the world.

If something I've written has been useful to you, I'd genuinely like to know. The best conversations I've had started with a stranger's email.