Two great men passed away in different world

Today I wanted to write about two great men recently passed away in two different world. Both passed away last month. Both are strong believer of free market principles like limited government, rule of law, private property right etc. Both are great teachers in their own field. One taught economics and other man taught engineering subjects. I am talking about Prof P V Indiresan and Prof Armen A Alchian.

Professor P V Indiresan who passed away on 24th February, 2013 in Pune where he was about to chair a Session on " the Election Commission’s technical committee meet on electronic voting machines."

When I first heard the news I was terribly saddened. Though I was in office at that time and could not do anything except to simple sit down  and pray for his peace. Two things connects me. First, I have been reading his articles at least since 2002 and secondly, I had the opportunity to meet him in 2012 and freely discuss things that interest us. He wrote his last India 2020 column in The Business Line on 22nd February, 2013. 

I am sure he would have written a great piece on this year budget if he were to alive today. His column use to appear on Saturday. You can read all his BL columns here. He also written regular columns in The Hindu newspaper long ago, some are available in the website but one need to do some technical search to get the article. He has also written a column in The Indian Express. The most interesting thing about Prof Indiresan is that he could easily yet lucidly about economics even the economists in India cannot think of such ideas. I am referring to his articles on differential interest rates of RBI.

Here are news item/articles on his passing away:

• "Kalam was a passionate votary of Indiresan’s pet programme PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas), which he felt was the only way to decongest our cities. "

• “Years ago, I was sitting with legendary IIT professor and former director of IIT Madras, P. V. Indiresan. ‘Let’s face it,’ he told me bluntly, ‘Most teachers in the IITs are inferior to the students.’” Also read this.

• PM condoles the passing away of Prof. Indiresan

Very recently only I was introduced to Prof Armen Alchian. Good friend Vipin gifted me the two volume of collected works of Prof Alchian by gently saying "Alchian is equally important economist as Prof F A Hayek was" on decoding the private property right and many other issues. Here are some good links to get quick understanding about his works. See 1,2,3,4.