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 is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...

covering all

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...

, 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 Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is a public major research university located in New Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university is known for leading faculties and r ...

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

, and is Editor-designate of the journal. The Sameeksha Trust board comprises eminent persons from academia and business, namely,

Deepak Nayyar Deepak Nayyar (born 1946) is an Indian economist and academician. He is a professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Chairperson of the Board of Governors of Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) New Delhi. ...

(Chairman), D N Ghosh (Managing Trustee), Andre Beteille,

Deepak Parekh Deepak Parekh (born 18 October 1944) is an Indian businessman and the Chairman of Housing Development Finance Corporation, India's leading housing private development finance institution. It is based in Mumbai. Education Parekh completed his ...

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 (born 27 November 1954) is a noted Indian political theorist, who was professor of political theory at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. His works on political theory, multiculturalism, identity politics and secularism have evoked sharp de ...

, 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, who since 1972 has taught and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States. Sen has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, econom ...

Manmohan Singh Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indir ...

Jagdish Bhagwati Jagdish Natwarlal Bhagwati (born July 26, 1934) is an Indian-born naturalized American economist and one of the most influential trade theorists of his generation. He is a University Professor of economics and law at Columbia University and a Sen ...

Ramachandra Guha Ramachandra "Ram" Guha (born 29 April 1958) is an Indian historian, environmentalist, writer and public intellectual whose research interests include social, political, contemporary, environmental and cricket history, and the field of economics. ...

Angus Deaton Sir Angus Stewart Deaton (born 19 October 1945) is a British economist and academic. Deaton is currently a Senior Scholar and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus at the Princeton School of Public ...

Kaushik Basu Kaushik Basu (born 9 January 1952) is an Indian economist who was Chief Economist of the World Bank from 2012 to 2016. He is the C. Marks Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics at Cornell University, and academic advisory ...

Jeffrey Sachs Jeffrey David Sachs () (born 5 November 1954) is an American economist, academic, public policy analyst, and former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he holds the title of University Professor. He is known for his work ...

Prannoy Roy Prannoy Lal Roy (born 15 October 1949) is an Indian economist, chartered accountant, psephologist, journalist and author. He is the former executive co-chairperson of NDTV and is considered to be one of its co-founders, along with his wife R ...

T.N. Srinivasan T. N. Srinivasan, in full Thirukodikaval Nilakanta Srinivasan (27 March 1933 – 11 November 2018), was an Indian economist who had taught and worked in the United States. He was the Professor#Retired faculty 2, Emeritus Samuel C. Park, Jr. Prof ...

Subramanian Swamy Subramanian Swamy (born 15 September 1939) is an Indian politician, economist and statistician. Before joining politics, he was a professor of Mathematical Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He is known for his Hindu n ...

, Christophe Jaffrelot,

Jean Drèze Jean Drèze (born 1959) is a Belgian-born Indian welfare economist, social scientist and activist. He has worked on several developmental issues facing India like social welfare and gender inequality. His co-authors include Nobel laureate in ...

Mani Shankar Aiyar Mani Shankar Aiyar (born 10 April 1941) is an Indian politician and former career civil servant diplomat. He is a member of the Indian National Congress Party. He represented the Mayiladuthurai constituency of Tamil Nadu in the 10th Lok Sabha, ...

, Andre Beteille, Ashok Gulati, and

Nirupam Bajpai Nirupam Bajpai, a US-based Indian educationist and economist, is the Senior Research Scholar at the Earth Institute of the Columbia University and the Senior Development Advisor and Director of its South Asia Program. He is the founding director ...

Political position

The journal is known for its strong editorial stance with a "social conscience"EPW plans editions in Indian languages
''hindu.com''. 31 January 2010. Retrieved 15 January 2014 and 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)/CPIM/CPM) is a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist communist List of political parties in India, political party in India. It is the largest communist party of India in term ...

government in

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

for not being radical enough. 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 a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 ...

government during the

Emergency An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

, 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 Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...

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 ...

'' and ''

JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...

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

LexisNexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer informa ...

'', ''

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...

'', ''Securities.com'', ''

Gale Cengage Gale is a global provider of research and digital learning resources. The company is based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, west of Detroit. It has been a division of Cengage since 2007. The company, formerly known as Gale Research and the Gale G ...

'', ''AcquireMedia'' and ''

NewsBank NewsBank is a news database resource that provides archives of media publications as reference materials to libraries. History John Naisbitt, the author of the book ''Megatrends'', founded NewsBank.Andrews 1998, p. 17. The company was launched i ...

''. ''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 Jean may refer to: People * Jean (female given name) * Jean (male given name) * Jean (surname) Fictional characters * Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character * Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations * ...

, 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 conglomerate, headquartered in Ahmedabad. It was founded by Gautam Adani in 1988 as a commodity trading business, with the flagship company Adani Enterprises. The Group's diverse businesses include po ...

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 Publications established in 1949 1949 establishments in India English-language journals Multidisciplinary social science journals Academic journals published in India