Malcolm & Elizabeth Adiseshiah Trust
Dr. C. T. Kurien, along with Mr Eric Prabhakar, was one of the founder trustees of the Malcolm and Elizabeth Adiseshiah Trust as mandated by Dr. Adiseshiah in his Will. He has been Chairman of its Board of Trustees from the time the Board was constituted in 1999.
Dr. Kurien took his Master's Degree in Economics through the Madras Christian College in 1953 and Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1962. He was Professor and Head of the Department of Economics in the Madras Christian College from 1962 to 1978. In 1978 he took over the Directorship of the Madras Instituted of Development Studies founded by Malcolm Adiseshiah in 1970 and reconstituted in 1977 as a national centre for social science research within the framework of the Indian Council of Social Science Research. He was Director for a decade during which he built up the place as a noted institution combining rigour and relevance in its academic programme. He served as Chairman of the Institute from 1997 to 2003.
Dr. Kurien's writings - consisting of 15 highly commended books, many research papers and popular articles - had poverty, planning and rural transformation initially and issues relating to globalization subsequently. He was for some time on the Panel of Economists of the National Planning Commission and of the Reserve Bank of India and in 1983-84 was one of the economists invited by the Secretary General of the United Nations to make an independent evaluation of the global food situation. His contributions as teacher, researcher and commentator have been recognised, as National Fellow of the University Grants Commission (1975-77), and of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (1992-94). He was also the recipient of the University Grants Commission's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. Dr. Kurien was the President of the Indian Economic Association in 2002. In 2003 he retired from active academic work and now lives in Bangalore.