Travancore Mathew Thomas Isaac (born 26 September 1952) is an Indian author and economist, who was the Minister for Finance and Coir of the Indian state of

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

. A central committee member of the

Communist Party of India (Marxist) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)) is a Communism in India, communist List of political parties in India, political party in India. It is the largest communist party in India in terms of membership and electora ...

, he has authored a number of articles on economics, planning and politics, has published in leading regional, national and international periodicals, presented lectures and papers in National and International Conferences and seminars. Isaac is the author of more than 50 books, both in Malayalam and English. He represented the Mararikkulam (2001 - 2011) and

Alappuzha Alappuzha (, आलप्पुळ) or Alleppey is a municipality and town on the Laccadive Sea in the southern Indian state of Kerala. It is the district headquarters of the district, and is located about north of the state capital Thiruvana ...

(2011 - 2021). During his tenure as a member of the Kerala State Planning Board, he was in charge of the Peoples Planning in Kerala. He also served as the Finance Minister of Kerala from 2006 to 2011 and 2016 to 2021. He was LDF Candidate in Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha Constituency at

2024 general election This is a list of elections that were held in 2024. The National Democratic Institute also maintains a calendar of elections around the world. * 2024 United Nations Security Council election * 2024 national electoral calendar * 2024 local electo ...

Biography

The son of T. P. Mathew and Saramma Mathew, Isaac obtained a PhD from the

Centre for Development Studies The Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India is a premier Social Science research institute. It is also a higher education institution providing M.A. course in applied economics and PhD course in economics. The i ...

. His PhD thesis is titled ''Class Struggle and Industrial Structure: A Study of Coir Weaving Industry in Kerala 1859 - 1980''. While a student, he became involved in student politics, being involved with the Students Federation of India (SFI), an organisation which is politically linked with the

. He has held posts in the SFI at college, district and state level. Isaac was a professor at the Centre for Development Studies,

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram ( ), also known as Trivandrum, is the Capital city, capital city of the Indian state of Kerala. As of 2011, the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation had a population of 957,730 over an area of 214.86 sq. km, making it the ...

and has published a number of articles and books. Isaac is divorced from his wife Nata Duvvury who is currently a senior lecturer at

University of Galway The University of Galway () is a public research university located in the city of Galway, Ireland. The university was founded in 1845 as "Queen's College, Galway". It was known as "University College, Galway" (UCG) () from 1908 to 1997 and as ...

. They have two daughters: Sara Duvisac, and Dora Duvisac.

Works

English

# ''Science for Social Revolution: The Experience of Kerala Shastra Sahithya Parishad'' With B. Ekbal (1989) # ''Democracy at work in an Indian industrial cooperative: the story of Kerala Dinesh Beedi'' With Richard W. Franke and Pyaralal Raghavan. Ithaca:

Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University, an Ivy League university in Ithaca, New York. It is currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, maki ...

. 1998 # ''Kalliasseri experiment in local level planning'' With P. V. Unnikrishnan, T. Gangadharan, Sreekumar Chathopadhya, Lalitha Bhai Sathyan, and Ajay Kumar Varma. Trivandrum: Centre for Development Studies. Monograph Series: Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development.1995 # ''Modernisation and employment: the coir industry in Kerala''. With R. A. Van Stuijvenberg and K. N. Nair. Indo-Dutch Studies on Development Alternatives 10. New Delhi:

SAGE Publications Sage Publishing, formerly SAGE Publications, is an American independent academic publishing company, founded in 1965 in New York City by Sara Miller McCune and now based in the Newbury Park neighborhood of Thousand Oaks, California. Sage ...

. 1992 #''Local Democracy and Development: People's campaign for decentralised planning in Kerala'' with Richard W. Franke. New Delhi: LeftWord Books. 2000 #''Building Alternatives: The Story of India's Oldest Construction Workers' Cooperative'' with Michelle Williams. New Delhi: LeftWord Books. 2017.

Malayalam

# ''The Withering Coconut'' (1985) # ''Political Economy of Poverty'' (1985) # ''Economics Crisis in the Capitalist World'' (1987) # ''ABC of Political Economy'' (1987) # ''The World Bank and IMF'' (1988) # ''Kerala: Land and Man'' (1988) on the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Scholarly Literature in 1989">Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Scholarly Literature">on the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Scholarly Literature in 1989# ''Political Economy of Surrender'' (1992) # ''Peoples Planning: Theory and Practice'' (1998) # ''Peoples Planning: Questions and Answers'' (1998) # ''Construction of False Consent : Critique of Malayalam Media 2000 - 2010'' (with N. P. Chandrasekharan)

References

Citations Notes {{DEFAULTSORT:Isaac, T.M. Thomas 1952 births Living people Jawaharlal Nehru University alumni Communist Party of India (Marxist) politicians from Kerala 20th-century Indian economists Malayali politicians Marxian economists People from Alappuzha district Kerala MLAs 2011–2016 Kerala MLAs 2016–2021 Malayalam-language writers Indian male writers Writers from Kerala Indian political writers English-language writers from India 20th-century Indian non-fiction writers Recipients of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award Finance ministers of Kerala