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{{short description|Indian engineer and reformer}}
{{Infobox academic

| honorific =
| name = T. Karunakaran
| image =Karunakaran T potrait.jpg
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1946|12|26}}
| birth_place = [[Kanyakumari District]], India
| death_date = {{death date and age|2019|3|12|1946|12|26}}
| death_place = [[Mumbai]], India
| resting_place =
| nationality = Indian
| discipline = Electrical Engineering, Rural Economic Development
| workplaces =
| patrons =
| education =[[Tamil Nadu College of Engineering]], [[Indian Institute of Technology Delhi]]
| thesis_title = 
| thesis_url = 
| thesis_year = 
| doctoral_advisor = [[Prem Saran Satsangi]]
| academic_advisors =
| doctoral_students =
| notable_students =
| known_for = Rural Economic Zone
| influences =
| influenced =
| awards =
| author_abbrev_bot =
| author_abbrev_zoo =
| spouse =
| partner = 
| children = 3
| signature = 
| signature_alt =
| website = 
| footnotes =
}}

'''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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Karunakaran |first1=T. |date=2010 |title=Rural Economic Zone: Economics as if people and planet mattered |url=http://mgiri.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/rez.pdf |publisher=MGIRI Publications |series=Innovation & Industrial Models Series |volume=1}}</ref> 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]].<ref>Agrindus. http://missionsamriddhi.org/agrindus/</ref>

==Early life and education==

Karunakaran was born in Poovenkudiyiruppu village of [[Kanyakumari District]] of pre-Independence India.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Bakshi|first=Rajni|title=Bapu Kuti: Journeys in Rediscovery of Gandhi|publisher=Viking Press|year=1998|isbn=0140278389|location=India}}</ref> He received a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from the [[Tamil Nadu College of Engineering]] in 1969. He studied Mathematical System Theory from the Department of Electrical Engineering at the [[Indian Institute of Technology Delhi]] where he obtained a PhD in 1975 under [[Prem Saran Satsangi]].<ref>{{cite thesis |type=PhD |last1=Karunakaran |first1=T. |date=June 1975 |title=Systems connections and categories |url=http://eprint.iitd.ac.in/bitstream/handle/12345678/5478/TH-221.pdf |publisher=Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi}}</ref>

==Career and work==

Karunakaran served for 19 years in four [[Indian Institutes of Technology|IITs]] in different research and academic positions.<ref name=":0" />

From 1987 until 1997, Karunakaran was the Director of the Rural Technology Centre at [[Gandhigram Rural Institute]] (GRI), Tamil Nadu.<ref name=":0" /> He was the Vice Chancellor of [[Mahatma Gandhi Chitrakoot Gramoday Vishwavidyalaya]] in [[Madhya Pradesh]] from 1997 to 2004, and returned to GRI in 2004 to serve as Vice Chancellor.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Gandhigram Rural Institute (Deemed to be University)|url=http://www.ruraluniv.ac.in/gridtbu/About.php?cat=FVC|access-date=2020-12-26|website=www.ruraluniv.ac.in}}</ref>

He then became the Director of [[Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Rural Industrialization|MGIRI]] in [[Wardha]] from 2008 until 2011. Under his leadership, MGIRI launched solar-powered [[Spinning wheel#Charkha|charkhas]] to increase the volume and quality of yarn that a farming household could produce.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Shrivastav|first=Snehlata|date=May 31, 2011|title=Solar-powered charkha to revolutionize yarn quality|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/Solar-powered-charkha-to-revolutionize-yarn-quality/articleshow/8653315.cms|access-date=2020-12-26|website=The Times of India, Nagpur News|language=en}}</ref> This project was adopted and scaled up by the government of India to provide employment to 100,000 individuals in 50 sectors.<ref>{{Cite web|title=::KVIC ::SOLAR MISSION|url=https://www.kviconline.gov.in/msc/#|access-date=2020-12-26|website=www.kviconline.gov.in}}</ref>

Karunakaran was then founder-director of the Agrindus Institute<ref name="Agrindus – Mission Samriddhi">{{Cite web|title=Agrindus – Mission Samriddhi|url=http://missionsamriddhi.org/agrindus/|access-date=2020-12-26|language=en-US}}</ref> until his death in 2019. Agrindus trained children, primarily of farmers who had committed suicide, to become entrepreneurs and bring industrial value-added activities to the farm.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Fueladream|title=Dr T Karunakaran's campaign to fund the education of children of farmer suicide victims. by Agrindus {{!}} Crowdfunding India|url=https://www.fueladream.com/home/campaign/3327|access-date=2020-12-26|website=Dr T Karunakaran's campaign to fund the education of children of farmer suicide victims. by Agrindus {{!}} Crowdfunding India|language=en}}</ref><ref name="Agrindus – Mission Samriddhi"/>
Karunaran's work at Agrindus built on Gandhian ideas of socio-economic development, including the work-based education principle<ref>{{Cite book|last=T.Karunakaran|first=Regi Thomas|title=Liberating Education for a knowledge society|publisher=Nai-Talim Samiti Publications, Sevagram|year=2011|location=https://agrindus.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/liberating-education-book-1.pdf}}</ref> known as [[Nai Talim]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=T.|first=Karunakaran|title=NAI TALIM: TOWARDS A WORKABLE MODEL|publisher=SARVO Publications|year=2013|location=https://agrindus.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/nt-bookfinal-12-1-2016.pdf}}</ref> and Gandhi's vision of self-reliant village-centered economies. Karunakaran developed the latter economic approach into the Rural Economic Zone concept,<ref>{{Cite book|last=T.|first=Karunakaran|title=Rural Economic Zone: Economics as though people mattered|publisher=MGIRI publications|year=2010|location=http://mgiri.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/rez.pdf}}</ref> an alternate model of development to the [[Special Economic Zone]].

== References ==

<references />

[[Category:People from Kanyakumari district]]
[[Category:1946 births]]
[[Category:2019 deaths]]
[[Category:Indian electrical engineers]]
[[Category:Indian social reformers]]
[[Category:IIT Delhi faculty]]
[[Category:IIT Delhi alumni]]

T. Karunakaran - Revision history

>Chris the speller: add age at death