Obituaries

T S Papola(1941–2015)

In the passing away of T S Papola on 23 November 2015 at the age of 74, India has lost an erudite scholar and arguably its most prominent labour economist. In his career, spanning over 50 years, he served in many institutions beginning with Lucknow University, and then the Sardar Patel Institute for Politics and Economics, Indian Institute of Management(IIM) (Ahmedabad), Giri Institute of Development Studies, Planning Commission, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID) and Institute for Human Development (IHD). As an author of over 20 books and about 100 articles and studies, T S Papola contributed enormously to issues pertaining to wage theory, wage structure and wage differentials, labour market, informal sector, rural industrialisation and gender discrimination. His works on the informal sector and rural industrialisation were pioneering ones and remain classics. His work on remote mountain areas atICIMOD led to the development of a strategy of  “specialised diversification.”