About us

Industrial Economist(IE) was founded in the year 1968. It has stood steadfast through social, economic and technological changes. Through these years, IE has endeavoured to present well-researched features. It’s founder-editor, S Viswanathan (SV), strived to make the magazine a class apart and stayed true to its founding principles of reporting on
developmental issues.

IE Special issues
IE pioneered the concept of special issues for landmark events. The first one was for Madras Refineries in September 1969. This was followed by Indian Oil Lube Blending Plant, CIPET, South India Viscose, Lakshmi Mills, Sakthi Finance, Ashok Leyland, TIDEL Park, Saint Gobain, L&T ECC, SPIC, NTPC, BHEL-Tiruchi and the much recent one on TNPL…. The most prized ones were those released during launch of the three southern steel plants.

State Specials
IE has covered in detail the economies of several states on invitations from the respective chief ministers. These included Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab and Tamil Nadu. At the invitation of the chief ministers, IE travelled extensively across states, visited projects and reported the ground level changes that were happening. When Narendra Modi as CM of Gujarat organised the Vibrant Gujarat Summit, as a state guest, IE travelled entirely through the state to present a special issue.

Constant at Economic Editors’ Conference
SV has attended the annual Economic Editors’ Conferences organised by the Press Information Bureau without a break since 1973. This provided him the opportunity to interact with finance ministers, other economic ministers and senior civil servants. SV was instrumental in highlighting the problems faced by south to Delhi.

Beyond Journalism
IEs interest extends beyond reporting and works to bring about ground level changes. Two major initiatives are for doubling agriculture productivity and for extending gas connection to the south. To look deeply into agriculture, Agriculture Consultancy Management Foundation (ACMF) as a not-for-profit trust was founded and involved several eminent leaders as trustees. A demo farm was set up by ACMF to work on improving productivity by taking recourse to science, technology and mechanisation. The trustees and advisors included well-known businessmen and public figures. eg. F C Kohli, ex-Governor P S Ramamohan Rao, B Muthuraman, R Seshsayee, R Thyagarajan, B Santhanam…

IE strongly vouched for a gas pipeline for the southern states. IE met Chief Minister of Kerala, and Tamil Nadu and also wrote to chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and requested them to ensure getting a fair share of gas production from KG basin to be allotted to the south. IE also took up the matter with 58 MPs from TN and Pondicherry.

Happily, the parliament passed a resolution on setting up a national gas grid in January 2010.

IE turns 50
IE celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 2018. Thanks to embracing change throughout the course, IE survived through the years. A public function that was well-attended by the who’s who of the industry, administration and politics was well received.

Turning Digital
In tune with times, IE had turned fully digital with wider coverage, higher penetration and increased frequency.


Jayanthi Raghuanathan
Editor
Jayanthi Raghunathan completed her under graduation in engineering and worked with Infosys Technologies for close to two years. Her passion for journalism made her shift careers. Jayanthi has been trained by S Viswanathan, Founder-Editor, IE.
At the beginning of her career, she spearheaded the initiative with Chennai Corporation for PPP of Corporation Schools to upgrade education quality. She has also been the main anchor point for coordinating special issues for the Tamil Nadu Global Investment Meet in 2015, 2019 and another special issue for the TN Government in 2022. She covers all sectors related to business, economy, agriculture, services,…

She has been associated with IE for about 11 years. Apart from this she has worked as a corporate communication professional and has completed her Master’s in Interactive Media Technology from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.


S Viswanathan
Founder – Editor, INDUSTRIAL ECONOMIST

After completing his post-graduate courses in mathematics and political science from the Madras University and teaching for a couple of years at the Madras Christian College, SV launched the transport monthly Mobile in 1962 and the business magazine INDUSTRIAL ECONOMIST in 1968.

SV pioneered the concept of producing special issues on projects, based on visits and detailed discussions. He has visited hundreds of projects, spread throughout India. These include steel plants, power projects, fertilizer plants, agricultural universities, nuclear power stations, automobile plants, textile and petrochemicals units, oil platforms, oil refineries….

SV produced comprehensive special supplements on new projects and released well-designed supplements at the launch of these. Madras Refineries, Indian Oil Lube Blending Plant, CIPET and the three southern steel plants at Salem (TN), Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and Vijayanagar (Karnataka) are some of the projects at whose launch IE released special issues.

Since 1973, SV had been invited continuously, without break, to attend the annual Economic Editors’ Conferences at Delhi inaugurated by the Finance Minister and addressed by over a dozen Central ministers and senior civil servants. He thus has the unique record interacting with policymakers for over 44 years!

SV had also been invited several times by foreign governments/institutions to cover specific projects and programmes: by the government and industry of Germany, by the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, by the International Visitors’ Programme of USA, by the French government, the European Commission, the FAO….

Due to SV’s efforts in the capacity of a founder and Secretary General of the Madras Press Club in 1976, periodicals were also provided with press accreditation. SV has participated in dozens of All India Radio and television programmes in Doordarshan, Sun TV, Thanthi TV, Puthiya Thalaimurai TV, CNN-IBN… He has also been writing articles in Times of India, DT Next, Tamil daily Dinamalar and Tamil weekly Thughlak.

SV covered the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington in August 2005 and was part of the PM’s media delegation that visited UK and Finland in October 2006.

SV has interacted with several state chief ministers –Biju Patnaik, Dr Chenna Reddy, N Chandrababu Naidu, Veerappa Moily,  Parkash Singh Badal and Narendra Modi – and presented extensive reports on their respective states.

SV’s concerns extended beyond publication: SV presented eminent leaders in different fields at special lectures and seminars. The seminars dealt with subjects like SEZs, infrastructure, a fair share of gas for the south from KG Basin, insurance, housing, telecom, foreign trade…

SV instituted the Industrial Economist Business Excellence Award to applaud excellence in a southern corporate. The awards were presented at a public function followed by a lecture by an eminent public figure. Those who addressed under the aegis of IE included Messrs. R Venkataraman, C Subramaniam, Verghese Kurien, Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, Manmohan Singh, M S Ahluwalia, P S Ramamohan Rao, C Rangarajan, M S Swaminathan, B Muthuraman, B Santhanam….

He set up the Forum Beyond Books in several colleges to help undergrad students expand their knowledge horizons in different fields. In these, he presented special lectures, quiz programmes and provided student-members access to the IE database for preparing their reports, project work…  These were set up at various educational institutions including BIMTECH-Noida, College of Engineering-Guindy, Sastra University- Thanjavur….

Increasing productivity of agriculture, the PPP model for improving the quality of education in corporation schools, extension of  a gas grid to south India and the Shinkansen-type high speed train from Chennai to Bengaluru were some of his passionate advocacies. SV has been invited by the Zaheer Science Foundation to participate in its national and international seminars. In this forum of scientists he has been the only non-scientist!

A memoir, A Few Good Men, released by the ICT Academy, has documented the experiences of SV among eight other prominent public men in different fields. The Rotary Club of Madras, Chennapatna, presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to SV in 2019.

SV built his knowledge and expertise on extensive visits to places and interactions with a wide spectrum of people. He has travelled extensively within the country covering remote interiors of several states. Except Jammu & Kashmir and five of the north-eastern states, SV has covered the rest of India in detail. Similarly, he has covered over a hundred projects in Germany, Britain, France, Japan and especially the US where he has visited over 20 states in detail. These have helped him gain insights on industrial development, agricultural and social issues and visits to Universities of Purdue and Wisconsin-Madison, to get updated on R&D efforts.