Sharad Joshi passes away

Economist, agriculturist, prolific journalist and stalwart farmer leader Sharad Joshi, who founded the Shetkari Sanghatana, passed away at his residence in Pune on Saturday. He was 81.

According to family sources, Mr. Joshi, who had been ailing for some days, was discharged from a city hospital earlier this month.

One of the tallest leaders to grace Maharashtra’s politics during the 1980s, Mr. Joshi, who hailed from Satara district in Western Maharashtra, was a much-feted student and a trained economist who worked with the Indian Postal Services for nearly a decade and served with the United Nations for as nearly as long. Consistently brilliant in academics, he also briefly lectured in Economics and Statistics at the University of Pune in 1957.

He came into his own when he founded the pan-Maharashtra farmer’s organisation in 1979 titled quite literally the ‘Shetkari Sanghatana’ with the catchy slogan ‘Freedom of access to markets and to Technology’.