Prof. A. Vaidyanathan, fondly called Vaidy by his close friends, passed away on 10th June. He was a well-known economist, no doubt. But he was much more than that. He is, in fact, a reference point to many aspects of rural economy/development – agriculture and agricultural economics, water, livestock, cooperatives and rural credit, rural labour, rural development, and so on. A better part of his academic life he spent with the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram and the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS). He was a member of the Planning Commission of India for about 10 years. He headed various government committees and task forces including the Irrigation Pricing Committee, Restructuring and Revitalisation of Cooperative Credit Structure, 12th Plan Working Group on Data, to name a few. His near “obsession” with data and his efforts to streamline it is quite well acknowledged. As an academic, policy maker, and mentor of a whole generation of researchers and civil society activists and organizations, Prof. A. Vaidyanathan was a great inspiration. He was an affectionate and endearing person.
He was a founding member of SOPPECOM and an advisor to the Water Conflict Forum network.
To remember Prof. A. Vaidyanathan and pay tribute to his immense contributions, Water Conflict Forum and SOPPECOM have taken the initiative to organise a meeting on 20th June, 2020 from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm. Though the initiative has been taken by the Water Conflict Forum and SOPPECOM, it is being organised on behalf of all civil society organisations that he has been associated with in one way or the other.
For more details of the meeting, download the detailed invite from below.
Join the meeting using the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81079581653?pwd=eEJoTnBheXdnMmE0eW1MYW5VYmR1Zz09#success
Meeting ID: 810 7958 1653
Password: 150414