The WSJ blog has an article about Kaushik Basu, the former Cornell Econ Department Chair, and his progress as the chief economic advisor to the Government of India. He says that the Indian bureaucracy was definitely a change of scenery from the hallways of Uris:
In his first few weeks in the job, Mr. Basu had his moments of self doubt about what he had landed himself in. He is on a sabbatical from Cornell University in New York state, where he is a professor in economics and international studies.
“In those moments I told myself that if Malinowski could spend months at a stretch in the wilderness of the Trobriand Islands, surely I could do two years in the North Block,” he said, referring to Bronislaw Malinowski, the famous Polish anthropologist.
Mr. Basu comforted himself with the thought that if nothing came of it all, he could be an observer and chronicler of the Indian bureaucracy like an anthropologist and call it “Tristes North Block.” That would be his ode to Claude Levis-Strauss, the French anthropologist, ethnologist and author of “Tristes Tropiques,” who passed away in 2009. So, for the first time in his life, Mr. Basu now maintains a diary.
Something has come of it all, though, and Basu has since had a “sizable hand” in many economic policy decisions. He says that his only regret is that he doesn’t have as much time to pursue his academic interests– hopefully he’ll have plenty of time for those once he returns to the 4th floor of Uris, or, perhaps Day Hall?
