Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics

Gopal Krishna Gokhale, founder of GIPE

The institute was founded on 6 June 1930 by R. R. Kale as a centre for research and higher learning in economics. The institute was founded with an endowment offered to the Servants of India Society by Shri R R Kale. The Servants of India Society, a registered body founded by the nationalist leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale, are the trustees of the institute. The institute is registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, and the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950.

The institute was set up with an objective to conduct research on the economic and political problems of India and to train research workers in these disciplines. D. R. Gadgil was the first director of the institute. It was named a deemed university in 1993.

The major research areas of the institute, developed over the years through financial assistance from various sources, are agricultural economics, population studies, economic history, input–output analysis for planning and development, microeconomics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, financial economics, public economics, international economics and the study of economics of East European countries.

In the early years, the research activities were financed through assistance from various ministries and public funding agencies including the government of Maharashtra and private foundations like the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. In 1954, the Union Ministry of Food and Agriculture established the Agro-Economic Research Centre of the institute. During the early fifties, the Rockefeller Foundation made a substantial grant, spread over years, for the conduct of a research programme in rural demography. The Union Ministry of Health also gave grants for conducting some specific demographic studies in 1954–57; and in 1964, the ministry decided to strengthen and expand the research work on population by financing on a continuing basis a Population Research Centre as an integral part of the institute. Ford Foundation gave a very generous financial assistance for more than a decade beginning with the year 1956. Later on, the Ford Foundation, in co-operation with the Planning Commission, provided a separate grant for research and training in the areas of planning and development, mainly devoted to input–output studies. In 1962, the University Grants Commission (UGC) recognised the institute as a Centre of Advanced Study in Agricultural Economics to start with and later, in 1964, as a Centre of Advanced Study in Economics. In 1977, the UGC, as a part of its Area Studies Programme, established at the Institute a Centre of Study of Economics of East European Countries. In the same year, the Reserve Bank of India instituted a chair in finance at the institute.

Although GIPE was primarily a research institute, it was recognised as an institution for higher learning in the field of economics, and it awarded MA, MPhil and PhD degrees in Economics under recognition from the University of Bombay from 1930 to 1949. With the establishment of the University of Pune in 1949, GIPE became a constituent recognised institution of the University of Pune until 1993. Keeping in view its professional standing and scope for further development, the government of India, on recommendation of the University Grants Commission, declared GIPE as ‘Deemed University’ from 9 May 1993.

The goal of the institute – to conduct research into the economic and political problems of India and train research workers in these subjects – has been reconceptualised over years so as to confine the activities of the institute to teaching and research in economics alone, leaving aside the political problems of India. However, the applied and empirical research into Indian economic problems and policy evaluations indirectly encompass the political dimensions as well.

The curricular content of the ongoing MSc Economics programme offers a blend of core and applied optional courses. The number of subjects per course have been increased from 16 in the MA programme to 20 in the ongoing MSc programme so as to make the courses more rigorous. The student–faculty ratio is 3:1 for the MSc programme.

The institute publishes a quarterly journal of economics in English, Artha Vijnana, the first publication of which was made in March 1959. This journal publishes results of research work carried out in the Institute as well as works of scholars from outside the institute after a refereeing process. The institute also publishes research works in the form of books and mimeograph series. The Kale Memorial Lecture, organised by the institute every year on the occasion of the Founder's Day, is published under the Kale Memorial Lecture Series. Over 70 lectures have been delivered under this Lecture Series, and the list of speakers includes such prominent figures as: B R Ambedkar, John Mathai, P C Mahalanobis, V.K.R.V. Rao, K N Raj, V M Dandekar, I G Patel, Andre Beteille, Manmohan Singh, Amresh Bagchi, Jagdish Bhagwati, C Rangarajan and A P J Abdul Kalam. All the Kale Memorial Lectures delivered at the Gokhale Institute are published, and most of the Lectures' Text can be found on JSTOR.

This is a List of Kale Memorial Lectures held at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics since 1937.

The institute has a campus of 5.25 acres (21,200 m²), located in the urban setting of Pune, in the Deccan Gymkhana area. The residential campus of the institute comprising faculty and staff houses, guest houses, and the student dormitories, is built on a separate plot of 5.39 acres (21,800 m²), a few metres away from the institute. There are two hostels, one for boys and another for girls. Adequate hostel accommodation is available for the existing students. The girls’ hostel was designed by the famous architect and urban planner Christopher Charles Benninger during 1996–1998.

The institute campus is a mélange of old and new buildings. The campus consists of an academic block, faculty block, administration block, seminar hall and the Dhananjaya Rao Gadgil Library. There is a conference hall, known as Kale Memorial Hall, on the top floor of the library which is used by the institute and also let out to others on rent. On the Fergusson Hill behind the institute lies the spot where Gokhale took the vows of the Servants of India Society – poverty, obedience, and service to nation – and administered them to three others. It has become a landmark because of the erection of a column there. Gokhale's bungalow still stands in the precincts of the campus. A massive and graceful banyan tree adds to the charm of the place. This is said to be the tree under which Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Mahatma Gandhi (who regarded Gokhale as his political guru) used to muse over political issues in their times.

The Dhananjaya Rao Gadgil Library is a depository library of the publications of the United Nations and its agencies, the World Bank, the European Economic Community, the International Monetary Fund, and the government of Canada. The library possesses quite a large number of rare books published before the advent of twentieth century and which may not be available elsewhere. The oldest book in the library dates back to 1680. Besides, there are quite a few hundred books which were published during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics.

• "Annual Report 2005-06" (PDF). Retrieved 1 November 2007.
• "NAAC Rating". Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. Retrieved 1 November 2007.
• Arora, RK (14 January 2000). "Technocity Pune". Archived from the original on 23 December 2005. Retrieved 1 November 2007.
• "Christopher Charles Benninger's Projects". Archived from the original on 27 December 2007. Retrieved 1 November 2007.