Economist, former Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen dies at 72

Economist and a former Planning Commission member, Abhijit Sen, passed away at 72 in New Delhi.

An economist, a former Planning Commission member, and one of the country's foremost experts on the rural economy, Abhijit Sen, passed away at 72 in New Delhi on Monday night.

"He suffered a heart attack around 11 pm. We rushed him to the hospital, but it was all over by the time we got there," said Dr Pronab Sen, his brother.In a career spanning more than four decades, Abhijit Sen taught economics at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, and held several important government positions, including the chair of the Commission of Agricultural Cost and Prices.

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Sen was born into a Bengali family in New Delhi. He went to Sardar Patel Vidyalaya and then St Stephen's College for a Physics Honours degree. He completed his PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge in 1981 where he was a member of Trinity Hall.He was a member of the Planning Commission from 2004 to 2014, when Manmohan Singh was the prime minister.