NEW DELHI, Nov 1: Bibek Debroy, a key economic adviser to the Prime Minister whose prolific work included economic theory, income inequality, and infrastructure financing, died on Friday. He was 69.
Debroy, who had a history of diabetes, hypertension, and a blockage in the heart for which he had a pacemaker, was admitted to the AIIMS emergency late on October 31 and died around 7 am on Friday.
“He was admitted with subacute intestinal obstruction. He also suffered from hypertension and diabetes mellitus,” an official source at AIIMS, Delhi said.
An empirical economist and a Padma Shri awardee, Debroy was the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council since September 2017.
A columnist to several newspapers, he had four days before his death sent a piece to The Indian Express newspaper, with a note: “Unusual Column. Short of a requiem”, according to the daily.
In the article, which was not published yet, he wrote about life after coming out of cardiac care centre (CCU) at AIIMS nearly a month ago.
“There is a world outside that exists. What if I am not there? What indeed?” he wrote according to the article posted by the newspaper on its website on Friday.
“A few condolences, perhaps even from important people. ‘Irreparable loss’. Perhaps a posthumous Padma Bhushan or Padma Vibhushan. A few obituaries,” he wrote.
A prolific writer, Debroy authored and edited several books, including translations of the Puranas, the four Vedas, and 11 major Upanishads.
Born in Shillong on January 25, 1955, and educated in Ramakrishna Mission School, Narendrapur and Kolkata’s Presidency College, Debroy went to the Delhi School of Economics and Trinity College, Cambridge.
He worked on trade issues in the 1980s and law reform in the following decade. He was also a full-time member of NITI Aayog from its constitution in 2015 until June 2019.
His work included authoring and editing several books, including translations of the Puranas, the four Vedas, and 11 major Upanishads as also Valmiki Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
Debroy was awarded the Padma Shri in 2015.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi described Debroy as “a towering scholar, well-versed in diverse domains like economics, history, culture, politics, spirituality and more”.
While India’s G20 Sherpa and former CEO of NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant said the country has lost one of its “brightest minds”, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh described Debroy as a “man of unusually wide-ranging interests” and one who had skill for “lucid exposition”.
Member of the PM’s EAC member Sanjeev Sanyal said he has lost a “friend and a mentor”. (PTI)
