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Pramit Kumar Chaudhuri

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His many friends (staff and students) will have been saddened by the death in July of Pramit Chaudhuri, Reader in Economics in the School of African and Asian Studies. Pramit, who came to Sussex in 1966, had been ill for some time and undergone a number of operations. A commemorative meeting and memorial are planned for this Autumn Term.

Pramit, who was born in Calcutta in 1935, studied economics at Cardiff, graduating with a first in 1956. After research at King's, Cambridge, he returned to Cardiff as lecturer in 1959. Joining the recently created School of African and Asian Studies at Sussex, he quickly established himself as a scholar, and a wise and compassionate teacher and academic administrator, serving the University as Dean of AFRAS (1980-84), at a very difficult time, and later as Dean of the then Graduate School. He chaired the Economics Subject Group, and for long had responsibility for postgraduates in Economics and in African and Asian Studies: the success of innovative Masters programmes such as Rural Development and Environment, Development & Policy owed much to his vision. He was closely associated with the IDS, serving on the Board of Governors and other committees, and co-editing the Journal of Development Studies.

Like many Indian intellectuals of his generation he was a convinced democrat and socialist, and in Britain supported the Labour Party. His professional concern with the economics of aid and poverty were of a piece with that commitment. He had many sides to him: he loved France and Italy and travelled there when he could. In his youth he was a useful batsman, and throughout his life maintained a keen interest in cricket and soccer, being an ever-optimistic supporter of Brighton and Hove Albion. In a moving tribute in the Economic and Political Weekly, Amar Bagchi wrote: "I will miss meeting ever again one of the most civilised human beings I have known in my life." We have lost a wonderful friend and colleague. Our sincere condolences to his widow, Jean, and family.

Ralph Grillo AFRAS

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Friday October 11th 1996