MIDS is celebrating the Centenary of its Founder, Prof. Malcolm S. Adiseshiah, during April 2009 - April 2010. During this Centenary year, MIDS is planning to organize a series of academic events and publications in reverence to the memory of its Founder. The Centenary Year started with a Founder-s Day Lecture: "Lineages of Political Society" by Prof.Partha Chatterjee (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata) on April 3, 2009. The Centenary celebration was formally launched in May 4, 2009 by Prof.M.S.Swaminathan (Chairman of MSSRF and Member of Parliament) with his ceremonial presentation: "Agrarian Crisis: The way ahead". On the same day, the launch function was also followed by a MIDS-NABARD co-sponsored Workshop on: "Financing for Rural Development". In this workshop, a number of scholars and experts have presented papers and participated in the deliberations. They include: Dr.S.K.Mitra (NABARD, Mumbai), Dr.K.V.Raghavulu (NABARD, Chennai), Prof.R.S.Deshpande (ISEC, Bangalore) Prof.Srijit Mishra (IGIDR, Mumbai), Prof.K.Nagaraj (MIDS, Chennai), Prof.D.Narasimha Reddy (University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad), and Prof.K.Narayanan Nair (CDS, Trivandrum).
During the Centenary year MIDS is also planning a number of public lectures under `Prof.Malcolm Adiseshiah Centenary Public Lecture Series-, which will be organized jointly with a number of prominent academic institutions both in Chennai and in other major educational centres in Tamil Nadu. The First lecture under this series was delivered by Prof.Kaliappa Kalirajan (Australian National University, Canberra) on July 9, 2009 at MIDS. The title of his lecture was: "Globalisation: An Analysis of Key Aspects of the Emergence of Big Malls and Retails in India". Two more such Public lectures were also organized, one at the Department of Economics, Annamalai University and another at the Kandaswamy Kandar College near Namakkal. Besides several publications being planned during the Centenary year, efforts are also afoot to release a commemorative stamp for Prof.Adiseshiah. In addition to MIDS, other organizations are also planning events to celebrate the Centenary of Prof. Malcolm Adiseshiah. For instance, the University of Madras, where Prof.Adiseshiah has been a Vice Chancellor, is organizing special lecture series under which a number of prominent persons are invited to deliver special lecture. Similarly, the Institute of Development Studies at the Mysore University is also planning a joint event with MIDS and ISEC, which will be held early next year.
The Faculty and Staff at MIDS hope these academic events and publications will go a long way both in cultivating the memory of Prof.Adiseshiah as well as to help inspiring many more such selfless individuals with a immense contribution to the academic and socio-economic development of Tamil Nadu in particular and India in general.