The placement cell activity in the Department of Economics of the Delhi School of Economics is now into its eighth year. In the past year, i.e. 2004-05, all those interested in corporate jobs found placements. This comprised a group of about a hundred students, almost the entire final year M.A. class. Quite a few of the jobs had
rather impressive pay packets. The employers who came visiting us included the most prestigious amongst the Indian corporate sector, the major multinationals in banking, finance and insurance, the media as well as the NGOs.

The person who is most responsible for bringing all this about is Professor Pami Dua. It is her vision and dedication which has brought about this very visible change and we are all very deeply indebted to her. In fact, so successful has been our programme that some of us have had some personal discomfort about whether we have not contributed to diverting the attention of our students too much and too soon into the practical world at the cost of encouraging them to give their undivided attention to scholastic pursuits. But perhaps we need not worry too much. Our students are better trained today both in terms of their basic micro and macro theory as well as in terms of the necessary quantitative techniques that are so vital to understand present day economic phenomena. I have no doubt in my mind that after the rather tough regimen that we put our students through at the DSE their knowledge base is quite comparable, if not superior, than that of their counterparts from the most well known campuses of the world.

The Delhi School of Economics building was inaugurated on 18 January 1956 by the then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who was also the first President of the Delhi School of Economics Society. This academic year therefore marks the fiftieth year of our functioning from this building. The School has under its wings, in addition to the Department of Economics, the Departments of Sociology and Geography. The original vision of the founders of this hallowed institution was to analyse social phenomena from a holistic perspective, without straitjacketing one's analyses within narrow specialisations. As the legatees of our illustrious founders we would do well to remember that it is our openness to new currents in ideas in diverse fields which alone would help us understand and appreciate the age old problems of poverty, ill health and illiteracy so that we may then think of effectively solving
them in the foreseeable future. I am confident that our young members joining the corporate world would never be unmindful of their larger social responsibilities.