Professor Ajoy K. Ghose in memoriam
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OBITUARY
Professor Ajoy K. Ghose in memoriam Magnus Ericsson 1
# Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
As has been announced elsewhere, professor Ajoy K. Ghose, Kolkata India, passed away in March 2019. Ajoy K. Ghose joined the Editorial Advisory Board of Raw Materials Report (now Mineral Economics) in 1989 and was actively supporting our journal for almost 30 years. He was— of course—the only remaining member of the Advisory Board since that time. Such devotion and long-term commitment was a hallmark of his. We met for the first time a few years earlier in Stockholm during the 13th World Mining Congress in a special session on mining for development. Since then, he has been important to the thinking and development of the journal and the Raw Materials Group. We studied a comprehensive volume, which professor Ghose edited in 1987: “Strategies for Exploitation of Mineral Resources in Developing Countries”. This volume influenced Raw Materials Group’s work as advisors to governments in Africa and peripheral regions of Europe. Indeed, the role of minerals and mining in the economic and social development of his native India and other countries of the developing world was in focus for his endeavours during his entire life. From the early 2000s, our regular meetings took place under the umbrella of the World Mining Congress (WMC). Professor Ghose played an important and progressive role in this global organisation. He organised two World Mining Congresses in India 1984 and 2003 and several meetings of the International Organising Committee in between. At the 2003 congress in Delhi, professor Ghose was the driving force behind the “New Delhi Declaration” which pointed to sustainable mineral development as the key issue to “cater to the great “minerals hunger” of the burgeoning global population”. In
* Magnus Ericsson [email protected] 1
Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden
2008, at the WMC held in Krakow Poland, he tock stock of the progress made by the mining industry towards sustainable development. He pointed out that sustainable development applied to mineral resources is an oxymoron, finite as mineral resources are. But technology provides the basic tools to stave of the crisis of “mineral famine” through innovative solutions in a range of areas. He concluded his review in the following words: “Imprinting a new culture in the milieu of a conservative industry like mining has been painfully slow and much remains to be done. ... The new paradigm for sustainable development of the global mining industry implies an acceptance of collective ethical responsibility by mining companies for the impacts of mining and mineral processing operations and obligations to respond rationally and constructively through espousal of best practices.”1 This view also summarises the ultimate goal of our journal still today. Professor Ajoy K. Ghose was indeed ahead of his times and deserves the honorary title Mining Guru. Magnus Ericsson Editor-in-Chief October 2019 Professor Ajoy K. Ghose 1934–2019 w
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