Economist Abhijit Sen, former Planning Commission member, no more

New Delhi: Noted economist Abhijit Sen, a former Planning Commission member and one of the country's foremost experts on rural economy, passed away on Monday night aged 72. According to this brother Dr Pronab Sen, he suffered a heart attack around 11 pm.

“We rushed him to the hospital, but it was all over by the time we got there," Sen’s brother told PTI.

In his career spanning over forty years, Sen taught economics at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University. He joined the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at JNU in 1985. Sen also held several important government positions including the chair of the Commission of Agricultural Cost and Prices.

He was a member of Planning Commission from 2004 to 2014, when Manmohan Singh was the prime minister.

Sen was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in India, in recognition of his distinguished service in Public Affairs in 2010.

Born on November 18, 1950, Sen was a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cambridge, England. His thesis was on ‘The agrarian constraint to economic development: The case of India’ under the supervision of Suzy Paine. Prior to joining Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1985, he held teaching posts at the Universities of Sussex, Cambridge, Oxford and Essex in the UK.

The late economist has also served on the Senate or Executive Council of several academic institutions in India, such as Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi), University of Allahabad and the University of Delhi. He has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswa Vidyalaya (Agricultural University), West Bengal.

Moreover, Sen was involved with a number of official policy making bodies over the years. He was the Chairman of the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices between 1997 and 2000. He was a Member of the PM Task Force on WTO in 2000-01. He was the Chairman of the High-Level Committee of Experts on Long Term Grain Policy, which submitted its report in 2002. He has been Chairman of the Committee on the Wholesale Price Index which submitted its report in 2008. During 2007-08, Expert Committee on Impact of Commodity Futures Trading in India.

His international stints include serving as Adviser or Consultant to a number of international organisations like the UNDP, New York; the ILO, Geneva; the Food and Agriculture Organisation, Rome; the OECD Development Centre, Paris; the UN University World Institute of Development Research, Helsinki; the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Rome; the Asian Development Bank, Manila.

He is survived by his wife, the economist Jayati Ghosh, and daughter, Jahnavi Sen.