March 9, 2007 | Volume 35, Number 21

The government of India has presented its highest civilian honor to a Yale professor and a trustee, both graduates of the University.

Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam conferred the Padma Bhushan on T.N. Srinivasan, the Samuel C. Park Jr. Professor of Economics, and Indra Nooyi, successor fellow of the Yale Corporation and presi-dent and chief executive officer (CEO) of PepsiCo.

The Padma Bhushan, which is awarded for "distinguished service of a high order to the nation," was conferred on Srinivasan in the field of "Literature and Education" and on Nooyi in the field of "Trade and Industry." The Yale affiliates were among 32 individuals around the world to receive the Padma Bhushan in 2007.

T.N. Srinivasan

Srinivasan is an expert on international trade, economic development and economic theory. He is a former chair of the Department of Economics, the Yale Economic Growth Center and the South Asian Studies Council at the MacMillan Center.

A native of Chennai, India, and a graduate of the Indian Statistical Institute and the University of Madras, Srinivasan received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1962. Before returning to Yale in 1980 to join the economics faculty, Srinivasan served as professor and later research professor at the Indian Statistical Institute 1964-1979. He has also held visiting appointments at Stanford University, the University of Minnesota, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Johns Hopkins University.

Srinivasan has been a regular adviser to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other international development agencies. He has written or edited 22 books in his field, and is the author of numerous articles. Among his many honors are elections to fellowships or memberships in the Economic Society, American Economic Association, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Sciences. In 2003, he was named a distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association.

Indra Nooyi

Also a native of Chennai, Nooyi was named a Yale trustee in 2002. As president and CEO of PepsiCo, she leads the world's fourth-largest food and beverage company.

Nooyi received a B.S. from Madras Christian College and an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta. Following her graduation from the Yale School of Management with an M.P.P.M. in 1980, Nooyi joined the Boston Consulting Group, where she spent six years directing international corporate strategy projects. She then held senior management positions at Motorola and Asea Brown Boveri from 1986 until 1994, when she joined PepsiCo.

At Yale, Nooyi is a member of the President's Council on International Activities. She also serves on the boards of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the International Rescue Committee, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, Motorola, Eisenhower Fellowships, Asia Society and PepsiCo.