The Japan Society of Economic Statistics has presented its 2017 Award to Jun-ichi Okabe, Professor, Yokohama National University, for the book he wrote with Aparajita Bakshi, A New Statistical Domain in India: An Enquiry into Village Panchayat Databases, Tulika Books, New Delhi, 2016.

Jun-ichi Okabe speaks on his work at an all-India seminar on panchayat-level databases held at the Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore Centre.
Jun-ichi Okabe speaks on his work at an all-India seminar on panchayat-level databases held at the Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore Centre.

The citation describes the book as a “breakthrough” and commends the book as “an advanced example of full-scale international collaborative research” between the Foundation for Agrarian Studies and Professor Okabe.

The Japan Society of Economic Statistics (JSES) was founded in 1953. It is an official academic society and a member society of the Science Council of Japan. This particular award, for which only JSES members are eligible, has been given only four times in the past decade.

The book is published in the Agrarian Studies Series of the Foundation for Agrarian Studies.

A summary of the book is here. D. Narayana reviewed the book in the Review of Agrarian Studies and Jihei Kaneko reviewed it in the Japanese journal Statistics (a summary of the review in English is here). The book draws on fieldwork in Warwat Khanderao village, Buldhana district, Maharashtra, and Raina village, Barddhaman district, West Bengal.

A New Statistical Domain in India was released on February 29, 2016, at a ceremony organised by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies and Tulika Books and hosted by the School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). T. M. Thomas Isaac, now Minister of Finance, Government of Kerala, and a leader of the People’s Plan Campaign from 1996 to 2001 in the State, released the book, and presented the first copies to S. Parasuraman, Director, TISS, and Gopal Galkar, former Sarpanch, Warwat Khanderao village. R. Ramakumar, Dean of Development Studies, TISS, chaired the meeting.

At the ceremony to release the book, from left to right: Aparajita Bakshi, S. Parasuraman, Gopal Galkar, T. M. Thomas Isaac, and Indira Chandrasekhar, Managing Editor, Tulika Books. Professor Okabe (onscreen) attended the function by video-conference from Yokohama.
At the ceremony to release the book, from left to right: Aparajita Bakshi, S. Parasuraman, Gopal Galkar, T. M. Thomas Isaac, and Indira Chandrasekhar, Managing Editor, Tulika Books. Professor Okabe (onscreen) attended the function by video-conference from Yokohama.

About the author

Sandipan Baksi

Sandipan Baksi is the Director of the Foundation for Agrarian Studies.