Ashish Bose foremost demographer died at 83

Ashish Bose, veteran demographer, 83, died in New Delhi due to illness on 7 April 2014. Asish Bose was best known for coining the term BIMARU in one page of research paper to then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.

BIMARU refer to the four grossly under-developed states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in the 1980s. Later it was expanded to BIMAROU which included the Orissa. Bose argument was to control the population of country the government should focus on these states as they accounted for more than 40 percent of country’s population.

He headed the Population Research Centre at the Institute of Economic Growth. He wrote 25 books on population and development such as Growing old in India: Voice Reveal, Statistics Speak and Darkness at Noon: Female Foeticide.