The ''Economic and Political Weekly'' (EPW) is a weekly

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

academic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which Scholarly method, scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the ...

covering all

social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...

, and is published by the Sameeksha Trust. In January 2018, academic Gopal Guru was named the new Editor of the journal. Guru will be Editor for a period of five years. The previous full-time editor was Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. The Trust had earlier appointed Guha Thakurta as the new editor of the journal with effect from 1 April 2016. His appointment came at a time when many social scientists were opposing the supposed removal of the previous editor C. Rammanohar Reddy, who resigned in January 2016 only to controversially end in 2017 with Guha Thakurta also resigning. Gopal Guru is currently at the Centre for Political Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

, and is Editor-designate of the journal. The Sameeksha Trust board comprises eminent persons from academia and business, namely, Deepak Nayyar (chairman), D N Ghosh (Managing Trustee), Andre Beteille, Deepak Parekh,

Romila Thapar Romila Thapar (born 30 November 1931) is an Indian historian. Her principal area of study is ancient India, a field in which she is pre-eminent. Quotr: "The pre-eminent interpreter of ancient Indian history today. ... " Thapar is a Professor ...

, Rajeev Bhargava, Dipankar Gupta, and Shyam Menon.

History

The journal was established in 1949 as the ''Economic Weekly'' and edited by Sachin Chaudhuri. It obtained its current name in 1966. It was edited by Krishna Raj for more than three decadesEPW readies for second innings
''business-standard.com''. 4 July 2008. Retrieved 15 January 2014 and is among the most prestigious scholarly journals in India, having had contributions from many of the country's best known scholars. Past authors include

Amartya Sen Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher. Sen has taught and worked in England and the United States since 1972. In 1998, Sen received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions ...

Manmohan Singh Manmohan Singh (26 September 1932 – 26 December 2024) was an Indian economist, bureaucrat, academician, and statesman, who served as the prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He was the fourth longest-serving prime minister after Jaw ...

, Jagdish Bhagwati, Ramachandra Guha, Angus Deaton, Kaushik Basu,

, Jeffrey Sachs, Prannoy Roy, T.N. Srinivasan, Subramanian Swamy, Christophe Jaffrelot, Jean Drèze, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Andre Beteille, Ashok Gulati, and Nirupam Bajpai.

Political position

The journal is known for taking left-leaning positions in its editorials, which were occasionally critical of the

Communist Party of India (Marxist) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)) is a Communism in India, communist List of political parties in India, political party in India. It is the largest communist party in India in terms of membership and electora ...

government in

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

for not being radical enough. According to ''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the India ...

'', the journal takes strong editorial stance with a "social conscience".EPW plans editions in Indian languages
''hindu.com''. 31 January 2010. Retrieved 15 January 2014 '' The Caravan'' notes the journal's "obsession with intra-

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

debate" and that its contributors "range from free-market liberals on one side to Naxalite sympathisers on the other". The journal was harshly critical of some of the policies of the

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and stateswoman who served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 un ...

government during the Emergency, as well as of state complicity in the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed in CAB Abstracts and

Scopus Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...

Licensing

EPW has licensed its material for non-exclusive use to 3 content aggregators - ''Contify'', ''

Factiva Factiva is a business information and research tool owned by Dow Jones & Company. Factiva aggregates content from both licensed and free sources. Providing organizations with search, alerting, dissemination, and other information management c ...

'' and ''

JSTOR JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary source ...

''. ''Contify'' disseminates EPW content to ''

LexisNexis LexisNexis is an American data analytics company headquartered in New York, New York. Its products are various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper searc ...

'', ''

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational corporation, multinational content-driven technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and maintains its headquarters at 1 ...

'', ''Securities.com'', '' Gale Cengage'', ''AcquireMedia'' and '' NewsBank''. ''Factiva'' and ''JSTOR'' have EPW content on their databases for their registered users.

Controversy

In 2016, C. Rammanohar Reddy quit as editor in a controversial move which led to several academics expressing concern in an open letter, and at least one board member, Jean Dreze, resigning from the board. Shortly after, his successor Paranjoy Guha Thakurta also quit in 2017 after a controversial article about the

Adani Group Adani Group (, ) is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate, headquartered in Ahmedabad. Founded by Gautam Adani in 1988 as a commodity trading business, the Group's businesses include port, sea ...

was removed from the website amidst reasons that many felt were unclear or unjustified. In its defence, the Trust posted a statement on the EPW website stating that Guha Thakurta had violated his position by responding to a legal notice sent by the Adani Group without informing the Trust. This once again led to various scholars and commentators questioning the Sameeksha Trust that runs the journal. Eventually professor and scholar Gopal Guru was appointed as the new editor in January 2018.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Weekly journals Academic journals established in 1949 1949 establishments in India English-language journals Multidisciplinary social science journals Academic journals published in India