Travancore Mathew Thomas Isaac (born 26 September 1952) is an Indian politician and economist, who served as the Minister for Finance and Coir of the Indian state of

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

and a central committee member 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 ...

. He represented the Alappuzha constituency in the

Kerala Legislative Assembly The Kerala Legislative Assembly, popularly known as the Kerala Niyamasabha, is the State Assembly of Kerala, one of the 28 states in India. The Assembly is formed by 140 elected representatives. Each elected member represents one of the 140 c ...

. During his tenure as a member of the

Kerala State Planning Board The Kerala State Planning Board is an advisory board under the Government of the State of Kerala, India. It was constituted in 1967 with Chief Minister as Chairman and a non-official as part-time Vice-Chairman. The board assists the state gov ...

, he was in charge of the

Peoples Planning in Kerala People's Plan Campaign, held in 1996 in Kerala State, was an experiment in decentralization of powers to local governments with focus on local planning. Kerala State lies in the south-west part of India. In India's Ninth Five-Year Plan, each s ...

. He also served as the Finance Minister of Kerala from 2006 to 2011 and 2016 to 2021.

Biography

The son of T. P. Mathew and Saramma Mathew, Isaac obtained a PhD from the

Centre for Development Studies The Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India is a premier Social Science research institute. It is also a higher education institution providing M.A. course in applied economics and PhD course in economics. It is ...

. His PhD thesis is titled ''Class Struggle and Industrial Structure: A Study of Coir Weaving Industry in Kerala 1859 - 1980''. While a student, he became involved in student politics, being involved with the

Students Federation of India The Students' Federation of India (abbreviated as SFI) is an Indian left-wing student organisation politically aligned to the ideologies of Independence, Democracy and Socialism. Currently, V. P. Sanu and Mayukh Biswas are elected as the All I ...

(SFI), an organisation which is politically linked with the

. He has held posts in the SFI at college, district and state level. Isaac was a professor at the Centre for Development Studies,

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

and has published a number of articles and books. Isaac is divorced from his wife Dr. Nata Duvvury who is currently a senior lecturer at

National University of Ireland, Galway The University of Galway ( ga, Ollscoil na Gaillimhe) is a public research university located in the city of Galway, Ireland. A tertiary education and research institution, the university was awarded the full five QS stars for excellence in 201 ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. They have two daughters: Sara Duvisac, and Dora Duvisac.

Works

English

# ''Science for Social Revolution: The Experience of Kerala Shastra Sahithya Parishad'' With B. Ekbal (1989) # ''Democracy at work in an Indian industrial cooperative: the story of Kerala Dinesh Beedi'' With Richard W. Franke and Pyaralal Raghavan. Ithaca:

Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in th ...

. 1998 # ''Kalliasseri experiment in local level planning'' With P. V. Unnikrishnan, T. Gangadharan, Sreekumar Chathopadhya, Lalitha Bhai Sathyan, and Ajay Kumar Varma. Trivandrum: Centre for Development Studies. Monograph Series: Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development.1995 # ''Modernisation and employment: the coir industry in Kerala''. With R. A. Van Stuijvenberg and K. N. Nair. Indo-Dutch Studies on Development Alternatives 10. New Delhi:

SAGE Publications SAGE Publishing, formerly SAGE Publications, is an American independent publishing company founded in 1965 in New York by Sara Miller McCune and now based in Newbury Park, California. It publishes more than 1,000 journals, more than 800 books ...

. 1992 #''Local Democracy and Development: People's campaign for decentralised planning in Kerala'' with Richard W. Franke. New Delhi:

LeftWord Books LeftWord Books is a New Delhi-based publisher that seeks to reflect the views of the Left in India and South Asia. Its Managing Director is Prakash Karat, the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M). The Ch ...

. 2000 #''Building Alternatives: The Story of India's Oldest Construction Workers' Cooperative'' with Michelle Williams. New Delhi:

. 2017.

Malayalam

# ''The Withering Coconut'' (1985) # ''Political Economy of Poverty'' (1985) # ''Economics Crisis in the Capitalist World'' (1987) # ''ABC of Political Economy'' (1987) # ''The World Bank and IMF'' (1988) # ''Kerala: Land and Man'' (1988) on_the_Kerala_Sahitya_Akademi_Award_for_Scholarly_Literature_in_1989.html" ;"title="Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Scholarly Literature">on the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Scholarly Literature in 1989">Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Scholarly Literature">on the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Scholarly Literature in 1989# ''Political Economy of Surrender'' (1992) # ''Peoples Planning: Theory and Practice'' (1998) # ''Peoples Planning: Questions and Answers'' (1998) # ''Construction of False Consent : Critique of Malayalam Media 2000 - 2010'' (with N. P. Chandrasekharan)

References

Citations Notes {{DEFAULTSORT:Isaac, T.M. Thomas 1952 births Living people Jawaharlal Nehru University alumni Communist Party of India (Marxist) politicians from Kerala 20th-century Indian economists Malayali politicians Marxian economists People from Alappuzha district Kerala MLAs 2011–2016 Kerala MLAs 2016–2021 Malayalam-language writers Indian male writers Writers from Kerala Indian political writers English-language writers from India 20th-century Indian non-fiction writers Recipients of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award