Mr. Poddar is a law graduate from NUJS, Kolkata and pursued his Masters in International and Constitutional Law from Balliol College, the University of Oxford as a British Chevening scholar. Following this, he worked as a corporate lawyer with Clifford Chance, London.

After securing rank 361 in the UPSC examination, 2013, he decided to opt for the Indian Police Service. Prior to this, he had also trained at the National Academy of Direct Taxes at Nagpur after making it into the Indian Revenue Services. Since 2013, he has been working as an IPS officer with the Maharashtra police and bringing in innovative policies to tackle juvenile delinquency in the state.

Mr. Poddar came to talk to our students about the rise of ISIS, and upon reaching here, decided to split his time evenly between a talk on that, and giving the students some clarity about a career in the civil services.

A phenomenal storyteller, Mr. Poddar started off with an account about Zarkavi, the person responsible for the creation of what is today known as the world’s deadliest terrorist organization, the ISIS. He explained to them the story of a man who went from being given a “side job” in the Al-Qaeda to founding the Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Initially, Zarkavi was responsible for small bombings in Jordan, although he wrote multiple letters to the Al Qaeda requesting more work. However, the Al Qaeda and Zarkavi had ideological differences that they were reluctant to overcome.

Zarkavi, capitalizing on this publicity, used it to bomb 3 places of major significance and was finally recognized by the Al Qaeda, leading to the final formation of the ISIS.

This is the story that Mr. Poddar narrated that had all of us hanging onto his words.

Once this story was over, and we had an insight into history that not most people are privy to, MrPoddar moved onto talking about a career in the civil services, specifically his service, the IPS.

There were many students in the audience planning to pursue the same, so this part of the session was especially useful to them.

Mr. Poddar talked about how his new life is different from the corporate life he led in Clifford Chance. In contrast, this new life is well-suited to those who wish to make an actual difference in lives of people.

He talked about how IPS was “not a job, but a way of life”. It is a job that consumes you and requires you to be available at all times, as a leader, because there are lives and livelihood of people depending on you.

Upon being asked about preparation, he told the students that having a backup was of great importance, because the odds of one getting in are 1 in 10,000. He also talked about how newspapers are imperative, and how one’s strategy is more important than one’s knowledge.

He ended the talk by wishing the students the very best of luck.

This synopsis has been prepared by Anoushka Soni, a first year member of SILP.