Noted economist and Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) Bibek Debroy passed away in New Delhi at the age of 69 this morning.
He was admitted to AIIMS, which issued a statement confirming that Debroy had passed away today at 7 AM due to "intestinal obstruction."
"He was admitted with subacute intestinal obstruction. He also suffered from hypertension and diabetes mellitus," an official source at AIIMS said.
Debroy was also a columnist with The New Indian Express and Chairman of the committee that finalised the winner of the inaugural Ramnath Goenka Sahitya Samman award conferred by our publication.
In recognition of his contributions, the 69-year-old was conferred with the Padma Shri award in 2015.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled Debroy's passing and called him a "towering scholar."
"Dr. Bibek Debroy ji was a towering scholar, well-versed in diverse domains like economics, history, culture, politics, spirituality and more. Through his works, he left an indelible mark on India's intellectual landscape. Beyond his contributions to public policy, he enjoyed working on our ancient texts, making them accessible to the youth," he said in a post on X.
He also shared a picture of himself with Debroy.
President Droupadi Murmu said the country has lost an eminent public intellectual and offered condolences to his family members.
"In the demise of Dr. Bibek Debroy, the country has lost an eminent public intellectual who enriched diverse fields, from policymaking to translating our great scriptures. His understanding of India's social, cultural and economic landscape was exceptional. For his extraordinary contributions, he was honoured with Padma Shri. I convey my condolences to his family, friends and admirers," Murmu said in a post on X.
Debroy was educated in Ramakrishna Mission School, Narendrapur; Presidency College, Kolkata; Delhi School of Economics; and Trinity College, Cambridge.
He had worked in Presidency College, Kolkata; Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune; Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi; and also as the Director of a Ministry of Finance/UNDP project on legal reforms.
He was also a Member of NITI Aayog up to June 5, 2019.
The 69-year-old famously also translated classic Sanskrit texts, including the Mahabharata and Bhagwad Gita. He has authored and edited several books, papers, and popular articles and has also been a consulting and contributing editor with several newspapers.
In his final column for TNIE, Professor Debroy addressed the critical issue of student loans amid the rising costs of education today.
"When we were students, there weren’t student loans, not on the scale they exist today. A lot of higher education is paid for by debt, typically taken by a parent and not the child. It isn’t unusual for a family to sell homes and real estate to finance that education. While this may not be pervasive across all layers of society, in some, it is concentrated on those professional courses and often targeted abroad. The Vice President recently spoke of going abroad as a new disease. It isn’t new at all. It has been going on for years and years, except that, earlier, it was restricted to a layer of society. That has become more widespread and one can’t grudge that spread. Every disease has a symptom and a cause. I think we continuously duck the problem of the elephant in the room, reservations. Because of reservations, the general category student, even if meritorious, has few options. Send the offspring abroad—USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Other than education, there is the prospect of jobs and permanent migration, though a bit muted now. The RBI recently told us the educational loans outstanding with banks is Rs 123,066 crores and the number of Indian students studying abroad is 13 million."
-- An excerpt from Bibek Debroy's final column.
CLICK HERE to read his other columns.