Amartya Sen

Date of Birth : Nov 3, 1933
Place of Birth : India



Amartya Kumar Sen, born November 3, 1933 in India, is an economist and a winner of the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences (sometimes referred to informally as the "Nobel Prize for Economics") for his work on famine, human development theory, welfare economics, the underlying mechanisms of poverty, and political liberalism. From 1998 to 2004 he was Master of Trinity College at Cambridge University, becoming the first Asian to head an Oxbridge college. Amartya Sen is also deeply immersed in the debate over globalization. He has given lectures to senior executives of the World Bank but has also shown his commitment to reform from below by becoming honorary president of Oxfam. Sen was born in Santiniketan, West Bengal, the University town established by the poet Rabindranath Tagore, another Indian Nobel Prize winner. Tagore is said to have given Amartya Sen his name ("Amartya" meaning "out of the world"). Sen first studied in India at the school system of Visva-Bharati University, Presidency College, Kolkata and at the Delhi School of Economics before moving to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he earned a BA in 1956 and then a Ph.D. in 1959. He was also allowed four years to immerse himself in philosophical issues during his stay at Trinity College. Sen's father was Dr. Ashutosh Sen and mother Amita Sen who were born at Manikganj, Dhaka. His father taught chemistry at Dhaka University (now in Bangladesh). Dr Sen's first wife was Nabaneeta Dev, with whom he has two children: Antara and Nandana. Their marriage broke up shortly after they went to London in 1971. His second wife was Eva Colorni, with whom he lived from 1973 onwards. She died from stomach cancer quite suddenly in 1985. They had two children, Indrani and Kabir. His present wife is Emma Rothschild, an economic historian, and an expert on Adam Smith and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Sen brought up his two children on his own. Indrani is a journalist in New York and Kabir teaches music at a school in Boston, and has a rock band called Uncle Trouble. He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work in welfare economics in 1998 and the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award in India 1999. In 2002 he received the International Humanist Award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union. Eisenhower Medal, for Leadership and Service USA, 2000; Companion of Honour, UK, 2000. In 2003, he was conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

His Recent works are :

Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Issues of Our Time), 2006
The Argumentative Indian, 2005
Rationality and Freedom, 2004
Inequality Reexamined, 2004
Development As Freedom, 2000
Freedom, Rationality, and Social Choice: The Arrow Lectures and Other essays, 2000
Reason Before Identity, 1999

His Other works are :

Choice of Techniques, 1960;
Collective Choice and Social Welfare, 1970;
On Economic Inequality, 1973;
Poverty and Famines: an Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, 1981;
Hunger and Public Action, jointly edited with Jean Dreze, 1989;
India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity, with Jean Dreze, 1995;
Commodities and Capabilities, 1999