Obituary: Economist and BS Columnist Deepak Lal passes away at 80

Classicism and liberalism were two values that defined the man

Deepak Lal, another of those wonderful Indian economists that India exported to the West, passed away on April 30. He was deeply suspicious of governments and politicians. That could have been one reason why he quit the foreign service in 1966 after just three years. It was an inspired decision. He would never have fitted into the bureaucracy, where brilliance is sneered at.
 
For five years, from about 2014, whenever he was in India, he and I sat in adjacent chairs at the weekly editorial meetings of this newspaper. He would shuffle in with his walking stick, mask and,