The Editorial team of Kerala Economy takes enormous pride in reporting that, we have successfully completed the first year of publication of Kerala Economy. As articulated by Prof T M Thomas Isaac, then Chairperson of GIFT, Kerala Economy envisaged occupying an important space that remained in the academic and policy circles. For information or analysis of the state of Kerala economy, one had to wait till the Economic Review, an annual publication of the State Planning Board. Making use of the high frequency data, Kerala Economy was expected to provide with more up to date analysis of the key aspects of the economy like output growth, state finances, trend in tax revenue, employment, wages, prices and focused analysis of the select sectors that are key to the economic development of the state. Kerala Economy also updated the readers about the recent research on Kerala by scholars from different parts of the world and other academic activities - teaching/training, outreach through seminar/workshop in Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation. Hence, complementing our regular issues focusing on analysis of key economic trends, Kerala Economy also published three guest edited special issues. Following the Kerala Budget 2021-22 that focused on Knowledge Economy, we brought out a special issue, drawing from a webinar on Transforming Kerala to a Knowledge Economy, wherein experts from 24 countries participated. The special issue was guest edited with Dr P V Unnikrishnan, Member Secretary, Kerala Development and Innovation, Strategic Council (K-DISC). Subsequently a special issue of Economic Survey and Union Budget 2021-2022 was published drawing from a seminar organized jointly by Govt. College for Women, University College and GIFT. This issue was edited with Smt Anitha Kumary, Dr N Ramalingam, Dr V Uma Jyothi, and Dr Rony Thomas. The third special issue was drawn from the post budget discussion on the revised Kerala budget 2021-22 presented by Shri K N Balagopal, Hon'ble Finance Minister, Government of Kerala and current Chairperson of GIFT.
A unique characteristics of Kerala Economy is that it is bilingual - Malayalam and English - available both in print and online mode. The publication was started by an in-house team of GIFT (Dr A V Jose, Prof D Narayana, Dr N Ramalingam and Smt Anitha Kumary) with the involvement of Prof K N Harilal and Dr K Ravi Raman, Members, State Planning Board as Editorial Advisory Board Members under the leadership of Prof T M Thomas Isaac. Mr George Joseph, formerly with Hindustan Times and Dr Pyara Lal Raghavan, currently with Economic & Political Weekly are the consulting editors. The team got expanded with the involvement of Prof Thankom Arun, Essex University, Prof Rajeswari Raina, Shiv Nadar University, Prof Thara S Nair, Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Shri C Balagopal, formerly CEO, Terumo Penpol, Dr D Shyjan, University of Calicut (Dr John Matthai Centre), Dr Siddik Rabiyath, Dept of Economics, University of Kerala, Dr Zakaria Siddique, GIFT and Dr Anoop S Kumar, GIFT.
We are extremely happy that Kerala Economy has been well received among academia, government, policy circles and the general public. We were especially overwhelmed by the highly encouraging words from Prof M S Swaminathan and Prof Hanumantha Rao on our initiative. The numerous encouraging feedback from the readers from far and wide sustain our energy and enthusiasm. We place on record our sincere appreciation to all of you. My colleagues at GIFT lead by the Registrar, R Raja Gopal has cheerfully taken this extra burden. Especially noted is the continuous support by way of cover design and layout by Dr U P Anil Kumar, along with his contribution as an author.
We are highly ambitious and confident about the way forward under the leadership our new Chairperson and Hon'ble Finance Minister, Shri K N Balagopal. With a numerous enquiries for making content contribution and collaboration for publishing, we are inclined to diversifying the content by addressing wider set of issues pertaining to Kerala Economy. So far you have been receiving complimentary copies of Kerala Economy. We are deliberating on graduating Kerala Economy to a priced publication in consultation with you.
In anticipation of your continued patronage