T. Karunakaran (original) (raw)

Thirumalayaperumal Karunakaran (26 December 1946 – 12 March 2019) was an Indian engineer, academic, social organizer and reformer who worked on rural development problems in India and other countries. He proposed a model of decentralized development called the Rural Economic Zone as an alternative to the Special Economic Zone model of development. He served as Vice-Chancellor of two Gandhian Rural Universities, and served as the director of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Rural Industrialization (MGIRI) and founded the Agrindus Institute in Wardha.