TRIBUTE TO RANJIT CHIB, FORMER CHAIRMAN OF KARVY INSIGHTS, FOUNDER OF MRAS AND A PIONEERING PERSONALITY IN RESEARCH FRATERNITY

The market research industry mourns the loss of Ranjit Chibber whose contribution to the industry is unparalleled.

After completing his MA in Economics from Cambridge University, UK, Mr Chibber joined the Tata Administrative Service. He was posted at Jamshedpur and became town administrator at the young age of 25 years. Later, he joined Gallup UK and was selected by BMRB to head its newly created outfit IMRB India in 1972. He left IMRB in 1979 to start his own research company, MRAS. In 1995, he sold his share of MRAS to Dun & Bradstreet, the USA giant which owned the two largest MR companies in the world, Nielsen and IMS. He remained a consultant with Nielsen till 2015. Later, he joined Karvy Insights as Chairman. He was the key person driving the growth of opinion polls in India.

He passed away on 19th December 2023. Our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.

Quote from Paru Minocha, the President MRSI, The Market Research Society of India, also the Managing Director (Head-Qualitative and Sustainability Transformation Practice, Kantar, India)

Hemant was an established icon in the field of media, panel and research. A lifer in Kantar, his curiosity as a researcher was evident in all his endeavours, research to writing, art to farming. While his expertise is well known, what set him apart was his ability to take people along and the kindness that went well beyond professional expectations. He also served on the MRSI Managing Committee from 2015-17. Larger than life, he will be sorely missed for his humour, joy for life, and the grace with which he lived.

Quote from Thomas Puliyel, Former President, IMRB International (Kantar)

I have had the privilege of knowing Hemant Mehta since 1989 when he joined IMRB after his management degree. He was constantly bubbling over with new ideas. And before he embarked on any of his creative adventures, he would immerse himself in learning everything about the subject. When he started on research on the impact of music on mood, he read a lot of the literature on the impact of acoustic cues like tempo and energy on mood. Before he began work on social media analysis (years before it became fashionable), he studied how sentiment analysis can be refined and how natural language processing works.

Hemant had diverse interests – he ran an online art portal, was into hydroponics, loved crosswords and food, and gave freely of his help and guidance. The last I heard; he was mentoring a group of IIT students on how to improve chatbot responses. If Hemant took on a task you were sure he would do a stellar job, and in great style! He went away too soon, but in the years that he was with us, he accomplished more than what many of us could do in several lifetimes.