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Bibek Debroy

Indian economist (1955–2024) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bibek Debroy
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Bibek Debroy (Bengali: বিবেক দেবরয়, Hindi: बिबेक देबराय, 25 January 1955 – 1 November 2024) was an economist who chaired both the Indian Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council and a Finance Ministry expert committee on infrastructure,[1][2] contributing significantly to game theory, economic theory,[3] and the study of income and social inequalities, law reforms and railway reforms. From 2015 until 2019, Debroy was a member of an Indian government think tank known as NITI Aayog. He was also a prolific translator of major Sanskrit works — including the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata and several Purāṇas — into English.

Quick facts Born, Died ...

Bibek Debroy's magnum opus, Inked in India, co-authored with Sovan Roy, is a comprehensive catalogue of India's fountain pen, nib, and ink manufacturers.[4]

India awarded him Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian honour, in 2015 and, posthumously, Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian honour, in 2025.[5][6]

He received Lifetime Achievement awards from the US-India Business Summit in 2016[7][8][9][10][11] and from the Australia India Chamber of Commerce (AICC) in 2022.[12]

In February 2024, Debroy was conferred an Insolvency Law Academy emeritus fellowship, in recognition of his leadership, public service work and contributions to the insolvency field.[13]

Bibek Debroy died on 1 November 2024, at the age of 69, a month after his admission to All India Institutes of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.[14][15][16]

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Early life

Debroy was born in Shillong, now in Meghalaya, on 25 January 1955 to a family of Bengali Hindus. His grandparents had migrated from Pail, Habiganj in Sylhet, now in Bangladesh; his paternal grandfather and his father migrating as late as 1948. His father went on to join the Indian Audit and Accounts Service.

Bibek Debroy started his school education at Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Narendrapur, then at Kolkata Presidency College and Delhi School of Economics. Later, Debroy went to the University of Cambridge on a Trinity College scholarship, where, under the tutelage of Frank Hahn, a noted British economist, he worked on integrating information into a general equilibrium framework, was granted as MSc degree and returned to work in India.[17]

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Career

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Economics

Debroy's earlier positions included director of Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, consultant to the Department of Economic Affairs of Finance Ministry (India), and director of the project LARGE (Legal Adjustments and Reforms for Globalising the Economy), set up by the Finance Ministry and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to examine legal reforms in India. Between December 2006 and July 2007, he was the rapporteur for implementation in the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor.[18] Debroy authored several books, papers and popular articles, was consulting editor of Indian financial newspapers, and was a member of the National Manufacturing Competitive Council (2004 to 2009).[19] He chaired a Jharkhand state committee to recommend a state development plan.[20] He has been a Member of the Chief Minister's Economic Advisory Council in Rajasthan.

From 2014 to 2015, he chaired a Ministry of Railways committee set up to restructure Indian Railways.[21] Debroy had also taught at Presidency College, Calcutta, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade and the National Council of Applied Economic Research.

From January 2015 till June 2019, he was a permanent member of NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India Aayog), which replaced the former Planning Commission to act as an Indian government think tank.[22][23]

In September 2017, he was appointed Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, and from September 2018 to September 2022, was President of the Indian Statistical Institute. In September 2022, he was appointed Chancellor of Pune’s Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute.[24] In July 2024, Debroy was also appointed the Chancellor of the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, where he served till September 2024.[25] Debroy was a Reader (Associate Professor) in Economics at Centre for the Study of East European Economies, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Savitribai Phule Pune University, from March 1983 to March 1987.

Literature and media

Debroy translated the unabridged Mahābhārata into English, in a series of 10 volumes. He has also translated the Bhagavad Gita, the Harivamsa, the Vedas and Valmiki's Rāmāyaṇa (in three volumes). He has translated the Bhagavata Purana (in three volumes), the Brahma Purana (two volumes), the Shiva Purana (three volumes), the Brahmanda Purana (two volumes) and the Vishnu Purana, Markandeya Purana and Kurma Purana (one volume each).

He was the first person since Manmatha Nath Dutt to have translated the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, both in unabridged form, into English. For his translations, he was conferred the R. G. Bhandarkar Memorial Award in July 2023 by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI).[26]

The reception by experts in the popular press has been generally favourable. Business Standard, reviewing his translation of Ramayana, admired Debroy's lucidity and addition of explanatory footnotes.[27] Arshia Sattar, reviewing the same work for The Indian Express, applauded his translation of the two major Sanskrit epics and praised his introduction to the text as well as literal translation; notwithstanding the relatively poor scholarly apparatus vis-à-vis Goldman, Debroy's was held to be more compact and accessible.[28][29][30] Hindustan Times, reviewing the translation of Mahabharata, commended his academic-like rigour and passion; it spoke favourably of Debroy's choice of words—modernized yet true to the Sanskrit source, and sprinkling of mathematical details in notes.[31] According to a review of Shiva Purana in News18,[32]

Bibek Debroy's translation of the Shiva Purana is lauded by Open Magazine[33].

The review in The Sunday Guardian[34] of Debroy's recent work, "Life, Death and the Ashtavakra Gita," praises the book for successfully combining Bibek Debroy's literal translation of the Ashtavakra Gita with Hindol Sengupta's personal reflections.

In contrast, Willis Goth Regier, director of the University of Illinois Press, found Debroy's translation of Ramayana to be poor and lacking, inferior to that of Robert P. Goldman.[35]

Media

Debroy anchored Itihasa, a show telecasted on Sansad TV, the official channel of Parliament of India. The series is a journey to discover what is "Bharata", what it means to be "Bhartiya" and what it means in terms of India's Sanatana Sanskriti.

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References

Bibliography

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