Dr K. K. Tripathy – a 1999 batch officer of the Indian Economic Service, Government of India (GoI), is an Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Cooperation Government of India New Delhi. He has obtained a PhD from the Department of Management Studies of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi; Masters in Economics and Bachelor of Law (LLB) from Utkal University, Odisha. During his 22 years of public service, besides leading the Pune, Maharashtra based GoI’s Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management, he served in the GoI’s Ministries of Education, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food Processing Industries, Planning and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). He has published research articles in several national and international journals and has presented papers in various conferences in the areas of Rural Development, Agriculture and Agriculture Finance.