National Academy of Sciences

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences today announced the election of 72 new members and 18 foreign associates in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.Indian-American economist Avinash Dixit of Princeton University, and R.A.Mashelkar, Director-General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India, were among those elected by the academy this year.Dr. Avinash Dixit, John J. F. Sherrerd University Professor of Economics at Princeton University, is among the list of the world's front ranking economists such as Amartya Sen, Jagdish Bhagwati and T.N.Srinivasan. His teaching and research interests have included microeconomic theory, game theory, international trade, industrial organization, growth and development theories, public economics, political economy, and the new institutional economics. His book publications include Theory of International Trade, Thinking Strategically, Investment Under Uncertainty, The Making of Economic Policy: A Transaction Cost Politics Perspective, Games of Strategy, and most recently, Lawlessness and Economics.Dr. Raghunath A. Mashelkar is the Director-General of India's apex scientific body, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. Most recently, his sustained campaign on Intellectual Property Rights has promoted awareness among the scientific and business community. He was in the forefront of the campaign to retrieve India’s rights in the battle over turmeric and basmati rice patents. His work has saved many traditional Indian products from being patented by foreign companies Though Mashelkar began life in poverty, sometimes hungry and shoeless, he now directs a chain of 38 publicly funded industrial R&D institutions in India, and is president of the Indian National Science Academy. That personal experience of ascendance from dire circumstances, improvements in his country's infrastructure, and changing patterns of scientific emigration and immigration have convinced him that India is fated to become one of the world's greatest intellectual and economic engines