Kamal Nayan Kabra (b.1941) was for seven years a reader and for over 23 years a Professor of Economics, at the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi. He is a political economist, obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Delhi School of Economics. He was the first Nehru Scholar of the Nehru Memorial Trust (U.K.) at the University of Cambridge; taught economics at Ramjas College, Delhi University, for a decade. For over four decades he has been engaged in research, teaching, training, public speaking, consultancy, participation in popular, social, non-electoral political action for peoples’ rights and popular writing concerning various aspects of development studies, the Indian political economy, its development, policies and planning. He was engaged in training senior and middle level civil servants, public sector managers at the IIPA. He has been guest faculty at the other premier institutes and has been making contribution on the print and audio-visual media and in various seminars, conferences, training programmes and other public fora, both in India and abroad. He also works and publishes on various theoretical issues concerning development, planning, public policies, state processes, etc. He has done consultancy and research for various Ministries of the Central and State governments, public enterprises, national NGOs, ICSSR and UN agencies. His recent book High Growth, Rising Inequalities, Worsening Poverty :Indian development Experience (Books for Change), examines and exposes the really operative disequalizing and poverty intensifying character of successive policy regimes in India

His published works include a large number of research papers in various journals, regular popular writing in the media on socio-economic issues and about twenty well-received books and monographs, such as: The Black Economy in India: Problem and Policies; Development Planning in India: Exploring an Alternative Approach; Development and Ecological Role of Neem (co-authored); India’s Black Economy and Maldevelopment; Political Economy of Brain Drain; Dependence and Dominance: Political Economy of A Tribal Commodity, Nationalisations in India (two volumes); Public Distribution System in India (co-authored); Political Economy of Public Distribution of Food in India; Developing an Urban Fringe: Public Sector Banking (co-authored); Bhartiya Sarvajanik Vitaran Vyavastha (Hindi) — a book which received the first prize of the Ministry of Civil Supplies, GOI; Bhartiya Artha Vyavastha aur Antarrashtriya Mudra Kosh; Kala Dhan: Bharat ki Kali Arthavyavastha Ka Adhyayana; Badalata Bharat: Daave aur Hakikat; Bhumadalikaran: Vichar, Nitiyan aur Vikalpa; Bhumandalikaran ke Bhanwar mein Bharat; and Charkha and Chip: Technology for RuralIndustrialisation (Co-edited). He is, at present, working on two books, one on Economics of a Demerit Good: The Case of Tobacco and another one on Informal Sector in India.

Professor Kabra has held positions like Chairman of the Committee to Review Forward Markets, GOI; the Expert Committee on the Economics of Tobacco, GOI; Director, Food Corporation of India, and was associated with some working Groups of the Planning Commission in connection with the formulation of the Five Year Plans, and as member of its Evaluation Advisory Committee. Also was a member, Punjab State Planning Board.

He has participated in many international conferences in many countries and was invited by the US government as a part of their International Visitors Programme; held UNDP fellowship at the Institute of Developing economies, Tokyo and Seoul National University, Seoul; ICSSR-Chinese Academy of Social Sciences visitor for studying the Township and Village Enterprises (TVEs) in China. He studied food security in Bangladesh as a part of a team of the FAO. He was a UGC Visiting Professor at the G.N.D. University, Amritsar, and Osmania University, Hyderabad. He has examined many Ph.D. theses for the premier universities in the country. He is currently working on some studies on India’s informal economy, state failure in India, particularly with reference to the policy of Structural Adjustment; patterns of industrialization and alternative approaches to development studies. He is very closely associated with the Alternative Survey Group that has been regularly bringing out an Alternative Economic Survey, India for the last 17 years annually.

e-mail: kamalnkabra@yahoo.co.in, Phone: +91-11-2279 2630.