Amartya Kumar Sen, son of Amita Sen
and Ashutosh Sen, was born on 3rd November 1933 at Shantiniketan, West Bengal. He received his initial education
at Shantiniketan and then Presidency College, Calcutta. He was exposed early
on to the plight of the poor. As a 10-year old child, during the Bengal famine,
he was shocked to see people dying of hunger on the streets of Calcutta yards
away from shops stocked with food. Three years later in Dhaka a Muslim labourer
was killed in communal riots outside his house. The traumatic incidents directed
Sen to a relentless study of the economic mechanism underlying famines and poverty.
Amartya Sen joined Trinity College,
Cambridge in 1953. He became the youngest chairman of the Department of Economics,
Jadavpur University, at the age of 23. Between 1956-1998 he was Professor of
Economics at various Universities in India and abroad.
Sen's contributions on welfare economics
and definition of poverty in relation to development have offered a new philosophy
and an alternative way to solid economic development. He was of the opinion
that the World Bank system of ranking countries according to the GNP and saving
rates was not enough and he helped to create the United Nations Human Development
Index which has now become the most authoritative international source of welfare
comparisons between countries. Some of his works include ' Choice of Techniques',
' Collective Choice and Social Welfare', ' Poverty and Famines', ' Development
as Freedom' etc.
Sen is the sixth Indian to get the
Nobel and the first Asian winner of the Economics Prize. Some of the honours
to his credit are 'Indira Gandhi Gold Medal Award' of the Asiatic Society (1994),
'Nobel prize for Economics' (1998) for his work on ' The poorest people in Society',
'Eisenhower Medal' from USA (2000), 'Honorary Companion of Honour' from UK (2000).
He also received 'Bharat Ratna', the highest civilian award in India. He has
been honored with Honorary D.Litt degrees and fellowships of a large number
of Indian and Foreign Universities and Institutes of repute. Now living in Cambride,
Massachusetts with his third wife, an economic historian Emma Rothschild, this
genius has spent a lifetime fighting poverty with analysis rather than activism.
Contact Address
The Master's Lodge
Trinity College
Cambridge CB2 1TQ, England
Email: as341@cam.ac.uk
Ph: 495-1871, fax: 496-5942
