Events of Adri society
Patna, 6 February. While paying tributes to the late social scientist Late Shaibal Gupta in a condolence meeting titled “Sharing Life and Legacy of Shaibal Gupta”, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen said that his perspective in the development of Bihar took into account not only what came from standard books but also brought in a great deal of his own experiences. He was like a young man who was always in search for new context, new question and new answers. He opined that we should consider ourselves to be fortunate to have known somebody as great and brilliant and as educationally extraordinary as Shabial was. Among a host of other international and national luminaries who paid their tributes, Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee lauded Gupta’s passion for doing the best for the people of Bihar. Lord Meghnad Desai highlighted the fact that he had ideas to throw about and then to follow them up.
The Chief Minister of Bihar, Shree Nitish Kumar, held out for a compilation of Gupta’s ideas so that the coming generations could derive inspiration from it. Shree Nitish Kumar said that Dr. Gupta had a unique perspective with regard to Bihar’s development. The Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Shree Harivansh said that what he learnt from Shaibal Gupta was that knowledge of history is necessary to understand Economics. Rajya Sabha member Shree Sushil Modi praised Dr.Gupta for selling the brand of Bihar abroad, especially in the United Kingdom. He emphasized that nobody could point out the reasons for Bihar’s lack of development better than Shaibal Gupta. Shivanand Tiwary highlighted the fact that he had gotten to know the character of Gupta far better today than what he used to know. Abdul Bari Siddiqui said that his personality will be remembered for generations to come.
Dr. S. Siddhartha, Principal Secretary, Department of Finance announced that lectures in memory of Shaibal Gupta will be organized in the future. Shree Sanjay Kumar, Principal Secretary, Department of Education recalled discussions with him about the lack of Bihari sub-nationalism. Shree Chanchal Kumar, Principal Secretary to CM, attributed the establishment of the International Growth Centre in Bihar solely due to the efforts of Shaibal Gupta. He recalled accompanying Gupta to Ethiopia in 2015 where Gupta had advised its government on replicating the success story of Bihar’s economic growth.
Apart from several of Dr. Gupta’s family members reminiscing about him, Professors Muchkund Dubey, Anjan Mukherjee, Jonathan Leape and Robin Burges, Dr. Abhijit Sarkar, Dr. A. A. Hai, Col. Anil Sinha, Shree Prakash Jha, Shree Ravindra Rai, Dr. Vikash Jaipuriar, Shree Debarshi Bhattacharya, Shree Anand Kumar, Dr. Dharmendra Nagar, Dr. Pronab Sen, Dr. Rathin Roy, Dr. Kathinka Sinha Kerkhoff, Dr. Gerry Rodgers, Dr. Alakh Narayan Sharma and Shree Ghanshyam Tiwary also spoke on the occasion. Shree N K Singh, Shree Harish Khare, Shree Mangal Pandey, Shree Shyam Rajak, Dr. N. Vijayalaxmi, Dr. Shaquel Ahmad, Shree Satyajeet Singh, Dr. Satyajeet Singh, Sister Benedicta, Shree Pranav Chaudhary, Shree Srikant and Dr. Sunita Lall were also present on the occasion. Other than that, a whole lot of luminaries of different fields sent in their condolences on social media and through letters. Around 300 people were present physically and another 100 linked up through the Zoom platform.
The whole event was co-ordinated by his long-time friend and colleague, Professor Prabhat P Ghosh. Dr. Gupta’s daughter, Dr. Ashmita Gupta of ADRI proposed a vote of thanks.