Bharat Katyayan

Bharat Katyayan was born in Lucknow to renowned astrologer Acharya Indu Prakash and Dr. Smita Mishra, a woman entrepreneur and social worker. After schooling at St. Francis School (Lucknow), Delhi Public School (Gurgaon) and St. Lawrence School (Sanawar), he earned a BBA from Lancaster University and completed a short course at Oxford University.

Active in social work since 2000, he founded the Little Stars Society as a teenager and worked alongside his mother on slum education and vocational training for women. In 2009 he founded Reform India — a 21-member panel running awareness camps across villages of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana on child labour, women's empowerment and self-motivation.

After the Nirbhaya tragedy of 16 December 2012, he mobilised nearly 17,000 young people in Delhi — leading demonstrations and candlelight marches. Resolving to change the system from within, he gave up a lucrative job offer abroad to found Nav Yuvak Dal.

In his own words, one of the greatest addictions in the world is 'the addiction to doing good' — and that addiction defines Nav Yuvak Dal today. Under his leadership the party fielded candidates on 121 seats in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly election.