Balanced View of Public Policy

Unemployment and Poverty Figured Prominently in His Writings

- PG BABU

CONCEPTUALISED BY C. Rangarajan, then deputy governor at RBI, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) Mumbai quickly emerged as a leading centre for the analysis of economic policy under the leadership of Kirit Parikh, its founding director.

Suryadevara Mahendra Dev was one of the first to join as a faculty at the institute. He came from the Delhi School of Economics where he worked on industrial productivity and agricultural development as part of his MPhil and doctoral dissertations with legends such as K. L. Krishna and K. Sundaram, respectively. His early work focused on labor market and agricultural policy. It took a natural progression towards employment and poverty, which figured prominently in his academic and popular writings all through his career.