<p><em>Excerpt from the Foreword by&nbsp;Dr Y.V. Reddy</em></p> <p>“Dr. P.J. Thomas preceded Professor&nbsp;Manmohan Singh, Dr. Bimal Jalan&nbsp;and Professor Kaushik Basu among&nbsp;others as principal Economic Advisor&nbsp;to Government of India. He signed the&nbsp;Brettonwoods agreement that ushered&nbsp;the IMF and the World Bank, and also&nbsp;signed the United Nations Charter in&nbsp;1945 when he was with Government of&nbsp;India.<br /> ...<br /> “The present book “Collected Scientific&nbsp;Papers of the Pioneering Economist&nbsp;and Planner Dr. P J Thomas” provides&nbsp;a golden opportunity for all who are&nbsp;interested in studying the original&nbsp;papers written by him. It’s a yeomen&nbsp;service done by the author to the&nbsp;present and future generations of&nbsp;students of Economics.<br /> ...<br /> “The compilation of the papers have&nbsp;significant contemporary relevance.&nbsp;For instance, the papers deal with&nbsp;challenges before our country at&nbsp;that time, the banking problems, the&nbsp;state of agriculture, and above all,&nbsp;the problems of federal finance. Of&nbsp;particular significance is some of the&nbsp;micro data based studies. The book will<br /> be of immense value for policy-makers&nbsp;as well as research students, and a&nbsp;desirable addition to libraries.”&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>— Yaga Venugopal Reddy</strong><br /> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Former Governor, Reserve Bank of India<br /> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Chairman, Fourteenth Finance Commission</p>

<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">Prof. P.J. Thomas played a key role as a policy maker in the years preceding and&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 13px;">immediately following India’s Independence. E.M. Thomas has brought together in&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 13px;">this volume the important writings of Dr. P.J. Thomas covering almost every aspect&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 13px;">of the economy and spread over several decades. This is a painstaking work and&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 13px;">all of us owe a deep debt of gratitude to E.M. Thomas for brining to the attention of&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 13px;">this generation the pioneering work done by Dr. P.J. Thomas.</span><br style="font-size: 13px;" /> <strong><span style="font-size: 13px;">— C. RANGARAJAN</span></strong><br style="font-size: 13px;" /> <span style="font-size: 13px;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Former Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister &amp;&nbsp;<br /> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 13px;">Former Governor, RBI; Chairman, Madras School of Economics</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>P.J. Thomas was one of the most eminent economists and economic historians of&nbsp;India. His book Mercantilism and East India Trade was a pioneering work of British economic history and Britain’s relation with India in the seventeenth to eighteenth&nbsp;centuries. He was much ahead of his time in thinking seriously about the reasons for India’s poverty under British rule and after. He also analysed with empathy the&nbsp;condition of underprivileged people in a highly hierarchical and unequal society, and he had concrete suggestions regarding how to improve their lot. This collection of&nbsp;Thomas’s papers will be extremely useful to all students of the Indian economy and its history.’<br /> <strong>— AMIYA KUMAR BAGCHI<br /> &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</strong>Emeritus Professor, Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata&nbsp;<br /> &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Adjunct Professor, Monash University</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>In publishing “The Collected Scientific Papers of Pioneering Economist and Planner&nbsp;Dr. P.J. Thomas.” Dr. E.M. Thomas has done a yeoman service to the scholars&nbsp;in economics by painstakingly putting together precious articles on a variety of&nbsp;policy themes by one of the great Indian economists, Dr. P.J. Thomas, who had&nbsp;the rare distinction of advising governments in both pre-independence and postindependence&nbsp;period. The volume brings out rare insights into the economic&nbsp;challenges at the time of independence and the ingenious solutions to deal with&nbsp;them by a great economist.<br /> <strong>— M. GOVINDA RAO<br /> &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</strong>Member, Fourteenth Finance Commission;<br /> &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Former Director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy,<br /> &nbsp; &nbsp; New Delhi</p>