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Surendra J. Patel dead

Special Correspondent

Eminent economist, distinguished international civil servant

CHENNAI: Surendra J. Patel, an eminent Indian economist and distinguished international civil servant, passed away in Geneva on December 15.

After completing his Ph.D in economics in the United States, he briefly taught economics in Gujarat.

He joined the United Nations in 1950 and served in various organisations in the U.N. system till his retirement in 1984.

Subsequently, he worked in the World Institute for Development Economic Research (WIDER), a unit of the U.N. University located in Helsinki, Finland.

He was also a visiting professor at the University of Sussex in the U.K. and at Dalhousie and Saint Mary's universities in Halifax, Canada. Dr. Patel worked in many U.N. Regional Economics Commissions and contributed to shaping their economic profile in the early years.

He was the main researcher and author of the 1962 report brought out by the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) on "The Economic Consequences of the Arms Race."

From ECE, he moved to UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), where he headed the divisions dealing with trade among countries with different socio-economic systems and transfer of technology to developing countries.

During his stint at WIDER, he published a five-volume study on technological transformation in the Third World (London 1993). Dr. Patel wrote his thesis on the secular trends in the evolution of the world economy.

He returned to this theme during the later stage of his career and produced seminal papers on the post-war trends in the evolution of the economics of the developing countries and on their arrival on the world economic scene.

In spite of his preoccupation with international economic issues, Dr. Patel remained concerned with the problems of India's economic development.

His works on the subject include The India We Want (1965), Essays in Economic Transition (1965), and Indian Economy Towards the Twenty First Century (1993).

As a development economist, Dr. Patel remained committed to equity, fairness and justice in the international economic system, the philosophy reflected in all his works.

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