Amiya Kumar Bagchi
Amiya Kumar Bagchi (born 1936) is a distinguished Indian political economist. His contributions have spanned economic history, the economics of industrialisation and deindustrialisation, and development studies from an overall Marxist perspective, incorporating insights from other schools of radical political economics, including left Keynesianism. Among Marxists, he is known for his extensive contributions to theories of imperialism and underdevelopment. Biography. Born in 1936 in the small village of Jadupur in Murshidabad district in West Bengal, Bagchi received his higher education in Presidency College, Kolkata and Trinity College, University of Cambridge. In 1963 he was awarded the PhD degree  at Cambridge University for a thesis titled "Private investment and partial planning in India". He was married to the feminist critic and activist Jasodhara Bagchi. His academic career began when he started teaching in Presidency College, Kolkata. In the 1960s, he taught in the Faculty of Economics in Cambridge (where he was Fellow of Jesus College), but resigned his post in 1969, to resume his academic career in Presidency College, Kolkata. In 1974 he joined the newly founded Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, which went on to become one of the most productive and globally famous research institutions  in India. Bagchi has specialised in the history of Indian banking and finance, and acted as Official Historian of the State Bank of India (SBI) from 1976 to 1998; he played a leading role in ensuring that the unique archives of SBI are preserved for posterity. After retiring as Reserve Bank of India professor from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta in 2001, he became the founder-director of the Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata, a multidisciplinary centre of excellence in the social sciences, which is affiliated with the University of Calcutta, and is promoted by the government  of West Bengal. His famous discourse on quasi-capitalist banking has been recognised a masterpiece by Bloomberg L.P. He spearheads research in development studies in an array of areas, notably banking and finance, public health, labour studies, information and communication studies, gender studies, education, and the sociology of literature. He has been Visiting Professor in international academic institutions such as Cambridge University, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Cornell University, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Naples University, and University of Bristol. Awards and honours. The professional awards and honours Bagchi has received include: Bibliography. Bagchi has authored over 250  academic articles and has authored and edited numerous books and monographs. The books he has authored include: