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Gokhale Institute of
Politics and
Economics college
pune
The Gokhale Institute of
Politics and Economics (GIPE),
commonly known as Gokhale
Institute, is one of the
oldest research and training
institutes in Economics in
India. It is located on BMCC
Road in the Deccan Gymkhana
area of Pune, Maharashtra –
the city often termed as the
Oxford of the East.
The Institute was founded on
June 6, 1930 by late Shri 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 (1866-1915),
are the trustees of the
Institute. The Institute is
registered under the
Societies Registration Act,
1860, and the Bombay Public
Trusts Act, 1950.
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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. Professor
Dhananjaya Rao Gadgil, a
renowned scholar and visionary,
was the first Director of the
Institute. Under his leadership,
the institution laid the
foundation for research,
teaching and training in
different branches of economics.
From those days it has evolved
into a premiere institute for
advanced study in economics
boasting of faculty and alumni
who have distinguished
themselves nationally and
internationally as academicians,
policy makers and consultants.
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
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.
The Dhananjaya Rao Gadgil
Library was established in 1905
as a public library under the
aegis of Servants of India
Society with late Gopal Krishna
Gokhale as one of its founding
members. With the establishment
of GIPE in 1930, the Library has
started to act as the library of
the Institute. Presently the
Library is housed in a majestic
four-storey building, which is a
rare combination of colonial and
modern architecture. Besides,
some of the Library collections
are also housed in a separate
building inside the campus of
the Institute.
The Library has one of the
largest collections of social
science documents in India. The
total collection exceeds 2.5
lakhs of books and 470 national
and international journals. It
has a large number of
publications on Economics and
all allied social science
subjects and successfully caters
to the needs of scholars,
academicians, policy makers and
other users working in social
science subjects in India and
abroad. Though attached to GIPE,
the library extends membership
to outsiders also and thereby
performs the dual function of an
academic and a public library as
well.
The 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.
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