The Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) is a research institute based in

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

. It is a joint undertaking of the Governments of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

for conducting research on development problems in

and the rest of

History

MIDS was established by Malcolm Adiseshiah and his wife Elizabeth Adiseshiah in January 1971. Malcolm Adiseshiah served as its first director. In March 1977, MIDS was reconstituted as a national research institute under the sponsorship of

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

through the

Indian Council of Social Science Research The Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) is the national body overseeing research in the social sciences in India. It was established in New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delh ...

and the

Government of Tamil Nadu The Government of Tamil Nadu () is the administrative body responsible for the governance of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Chennai is the capital of the state and houses the state executive, legislature and head of judiciary. Under the Const ...

. The Adiseshiahs donated the land, buildings, furniture, equipment and made cash endowments to the newly constituted institute. Malcolm Adiseshiah resigned as MIDS' director in 1978 and became the chairman and honorary fellow. Professor

C.T. Kurien Christopher Thomas Kurien (2 July 1931 – 23 July 2024), popularly known as CTK, was an Indian professor of economics based in Bangalore, Karnataka. He wrote many books on economics and was defined as having centre-left politics ideology. Ear ...

became the next director of MIDS. In 1985, the

Reserve Bank of India Reserve Bank of India, abbreviated as RBI, is the central bank of the Republic of India, and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system and Indian rupee, Indian currency. Owned by the Ministry of Finance (India), Min ...

established a chair for applied research in regional economics, which has since been converted to a fully autonomous unit in 2002.

Administration

MIDS is governed by a governing council and an academic council. The governing council consists of the chairperson, the institute's director as member-secretary, representatives of faculty, the

, the Government of Tamil Nadu, and from the universities of the four South Indian states, trustees of the institute, and co-opted social scientists, as members. It ordinarily meets once a year, while its finance committee and executive council meet twice a year. The academic council consists of the director as chairperson, and both external and internal members. All the professors of the institute are its members; other faculty members and the Ph.D. scholars serve on it in rotation. Five reputed social scientists from other universities and institutes are members of the academic council. Each of them serve for three years. The council meets twice a year to review, and provide guidelines on, the academic activities of the institute.

Academics

MIDS' research focuses on subjects like development and planning, centre-state relationship, poverty, inequality, agrarian issues, social movements, caste and communal politics. It offers a full-time doctoral program under three classes - Indian Council of Social Science Research fellowships, RBI fellowships and Malcolm & Elizabeth Adiseshiah Ph.D. Merit Scholarship. It also offers an annual award called "The Malcolm Adiseshiah award" for mid-career academicians in the field of developmental studies. Prominent faculty members of MIDS (both past and present) include

Kaushik Basu Kaushik Basu (born 9 January 1952) is an Indian economist who was Chief Economist of the World Bank from 2012 to 2016 and Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India from 2009 to 2012. He is the C. Marks Professor of International Studie ...

A R Venkatachalapathy A.R. Venkatachalapathy is an Indian historian, author and translator who writes and publishes in Tamil and English. Currently he is a professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS). He is noted for collecting and publishing th ...

, Padmini Swaminathan and K. Nagaraj. Its publication cell publishes books and academic papers (sometimes in collaboration with Kalachuvadu Pathippagam, a Tamil publishing house). It also brings out a bi-annual bulletin calle
"Review of Development and Change
..

References

{{Authority control Social sciences organizations Organizations established in 1971 Research institutes in Chennai Colleges affiliated to University of Madras 1971 establishments in Tamil Nadu