Prof Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Why Is He Famous?
Jagdish Bhagwati is a renowned professor of economics and is regarded as one of the foremost international trade economist of modern times. Widely tipped as a future Nobel laureate, Prof Bhagwati enjoys immense reputation among his economist friends. Jagdish N. Bhagwati is presently University Professor at the Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. Earlier, Prof Jagdish Bhagwati was Economic Policy Adviser to the Director General, GATT (1991-93) and also served as Special Adviser to the UN on Globalization and External Adviser to the Director General, WTO.

Currently, he is a member of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's High-level Advisory Group of the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development) process in Africa. He presents himself as the human face of global laissez-faire economics. Jagdish Bhagwati has written or edited over 40 books and hundreds of articles on economics. Some of his famous books are 'In Defense of Globalization' (2004), 'Free Trade Today' (2002), 'The Wind of the Hundred Days' (2000), 'A Stream of Windows' (1998), 'India in Transition' (1993), 'World Trading System at Risk' (1991), 'Protectionism' (1988), 'Economics & Politics' (founder-editor), 'The Journal of International Economics' (founder-editor) etc.

Background
Jagdish Bhagwati was born in 1934,Mumbai, India. He graduated in Commerce from the Bombay University and went to theCambridge to pursue post graduation in 1956. Afterwards, he did his PhD. at the MIT in 1967. After studying inngland and the United States, Bhagwati returned back to India in 1961 and served as Professor of Economics at the Indian Statistical Institute, and then as Professor of International Trade at the Delhi School of Economics. He returned to the MIT in 1968. Twelve years later he left the MIT and joined the Columbia University.

Jagdish Bhagwati has received many prestigious awards including the Mahalanobis Memorial Medal (India), the Bernhard Harms Prize (Germany,the Kenan Prize (USA), the John R. Commons Award (USA), the Freedom Prize Switzerland,and the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy (USA). Prof Jagdish Bhagwati works with several NGOs in the US and India. On the personal front, Bhagwati lives in America with his wife Padma Desai, who is also an economics professor at the Columbia University. Their daughter, Anuradha Kristina Bhagwati, is a U.S. Marine officer.