CHENNAI: Founder-Chancellor of the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) Dr G Viswanathan has been unanimously elected as president of the centenary second year conference of the Indian Economic Association. The selection was made by the IEA general body during the celebrations of the first year of its centenary, which was inaugurated by President Ram Nath Kovind at Acharya Nagarjuna University in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, late last week.
AP Governor ESL Narasimhan, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, Nobel laureate and Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus and former RBI governor C. Rangarajan, were among the others present at the inaugural function.
In his address, President Kovind called upon emerging economies, including India, to speak up for an interconnected world with a fair and growing trade, in the wake of some countries turning protectionist. He also said imaginative policy-making was required to overcome the social and economic inequalities between different sections and regions.
Speaking at a session, Dr Viswanathan said good politics should ensure cooperation among numerous political parties of India to have a common development agenda and clean politics free from corruption. He invited the IEA to guide the nation with good ideas for optimum use of public expenditure and allied fiscal policies.
The IEA was founded by Dr. Gilbert Slater, the first Professor of Indian Economics, University of Madras along with Prof. Percy Anstey and C.J Hamilton of Bombay and Calcutta Presidency Universities in 1917, along with Madras Economic Association.
Former Presidents of IEA include former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, Nobel laureate Dr. Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate Dr. G.Patel, director, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Vice Chancellors Dr V.K.R.V Rao, Dr. Malcolm S Adiseshiah and Dr Yasodha Shanmugasundaram.
