Correct Answer : 6th Dec 2022
Prof Yoginder K Alagh, renowned economist, academic and a former Union minister, died at his home in Ahmedabad on Tuesday(6th Dec 2022).
* Alagh, who was 83, was emeritus professor at Ahmedabad-based Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research (SPIESR).
* “He was not keeping well for the last couple of months,” his son, Prof Munish Alagh, said. “But his condition deteriorated in the last 20-25 days. He passed away at home.”
* According to doctors, Alagh had injured his femur — or thighbone — during morning walk and that led to medical complications.
* “Prof Alagh had been ailing for the last few months,” SPISER director Priti Mehta said. “He was the founder-director of this institute and was associated with it since its inception.”
* Born in Chakwal, in present-day Pakistan, in 1939, Alagh studied at the University of Rajasthan and later got a doctorate in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, USA.
* Alagh probably represented the last of a tribe of economists who straddled the world of academia and policymaking with felicity, and who, unlike most, did not confine his interest to one particular sector of the economy.
* Consider this: During the 1980s, he headed the Agricultural Prices Commission (APC) as well the Bureau of Industrial Costs & Prices (BICP).
* As chairman of APC (now called the Commission for Agricultural Costs & Price), he set up its econometrics cell, which recommends minimum support prices for different crops and also published its reports with a view to encourage debate.
* At
BICP, he initiated the first round of economic reforms that involved price decontrol in steel, cement and aluminium..
Source : Indian Express