Monthly Archives: May 2018

Ashok Mitra who passed away on May1, 2018, was the doyen among Left intellectuals in the country, held in the highest esteem by one and all for his absolute integrity, his outstanding intellect and his commitment to the cause of…

Many years back I had written an essay “Cholera and the Post-Modern World”, (Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXVII, No.34, August 22nd, 1992.) that brought forth an extraordinary response. It stunned me. I got a hand-written letter from Ashok Mitra,…

There are some people who are hard to classify, in terms of achievement or contribution to society or personality, and Ashok Mitra is one of them. Economist, policymaker, writer, organic intellectual, politician, litterateur, legislator: he has been all of these…

Ashok Mitra’s achievements in both academia and public life made him exceptional Ashok Mitra who passed away on May 1, was a person of renaissance versatility. A major writer of prose in Bengali, he published several volumes of essays and…

The former finance minister of West Bengal was not just an academic, an administrator, a politician and an activist, but also a writer of amazing eloquence and insight in both Bengali and English. On the morning of May Day, former finance minister…

Ashok Mitra’s death on Tuesday morning is the passing of an era. That cliché has a certain poignant resonance.  Ashok Mitra embodied certain values and attitudes and a definite voice of which he was the last representative. The values were…

It is difficult to write about those whom you love. Curiously enough, the difficulty is not only because of the fear of excessive partiality: it is also because love brings with it the freedom to be exasperated. And intimacy creates…

Ashok Mitra was one of the most remarkable personalities of Independent India. A polymath who spanned technical economics, literature, policy and politics, he brought to all of these his distinctive flair, razor-sharp intelligence, and enormous energy and passion. His death…

In an age where politicians speak venomous language, have criminal backgrounds, behave in the most outrageous manner, it is difficult to imagine that a cultured person like Ashok Mitra was once the Finance Minister of West Bengal. Mitra, however, was…

One of my many treasured experiences while working for the Edit pages of The Telegraph was the opportunity every few months to go to Ashok Mitra's Sonali Apartment flat and have him dictate that week's post-edit piece to me. The…