Amartya Sen

Born On: November 3, 1933
Born In: Dhaka
Career: Economist/Writer/Professor

Amartya Sen, the recipient of the Nobel Prize and the Bharat Ratna Puruskar, is definitely one of the most treasured Indian citizens. He has brought in innumerable changes, revolutionized and challenged existing thought patterns and beliefs in economics and related fields. He claims to have had the roots of his education at Santiniketan. During his teen years, Amartya Sen had witnessed a part of the violence that took place because of the partition. The experience affected him severely and as he put it in his own words, "The experience was devastating for me, and suddenly made me aware of the dangers of narrowly defined identities, and also of the divisiveness that can lie buried in communitarian politics". If you are interested in the life and achievements of Amartya Sen, all you have to do is read on. It is suggested that you do just that.

Early Life
Amartya Sen was born in Dhaka which is now the capital city of Bangladesh. He was born in Santiniketan which was situated in the campus of Rabindranath Tagore's Viswa-Bharti school/college. Sen's maternal grandfather was a teacher here and his mother had been a student, so it is not surprising then that Amartya Sen too studied in the same school. However he did do some of his schooling in St. Gregory before he moved to Santiniketan. For his higher studies he went to the Presidency College in Calcutta followed by Trinity College in Cambridge. He completed his B.A. Degree in Economics (Major) and Mathematics (Minor) from the Presidency College and took up another B.A. in pure Economics at the Trinity College.

Career
In 1956 Sen returned from Cambridge and was appointed to the chair of the economics department in a newly opened institution named Jadavpur University. Since he was only twenty-three years of age, this created dissatisfaction amongst the people there. After teaching at the University for a couple of years, he returned to Cambridge and took up a course in philosophy from the Trinity College. In 1963 he came back to India, and joined the University of Delhi and the Delhi School of Economics as a professor of Economics. In 1970, he published his first book: Collective Choice and Social Welfare. He left Delhi in the year 1971 due to his wife's deteriorating and moved to London, U.K. The marriage however eventually did not work out. In 1972, he joined the London School of Economics as a professor till 1977 after which he joined the University of Oxford. He was the first professor of economics at Nuffield College, Oxford. He worked there till 1986 and joined Harvard.

Amartya Sen lays claim to a history of writing some of the finest research papers that have been published. In 1981 he published his paper; 'Poverty and Famines: An Essay in Entitlement and Deprivation'. He has also written a "Human Development Report", published in the United Nations Development program. In 1990, he wrote one his most controversial articles in the New York Review of Books under the title "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing". He has also authored about twenty books and they have been translated into many prominent languages too.

Contribution
Through his research in economics and related fields he has set new standards governments and international organizations. Today Sen has managed to influence authorities to not just find out ways of alleviating suffering, but to find ways through which there can be a replacement for the lost income of the poor. Another important contribution of Sen was seen in the area of economy development where he introduced the concept of 'capability' through his research article "Equality of What".

Awards And Accolades
Adam Smith Prize by Cambridge Universtiy (1954)
Stevensen Prize by Cambridge University (1956)
Mahalanobis Prize (1976)
Rank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy (1986)
Senator Giovanni Agnelli International Prize in Ethics (1990)
Alan Shawn Feinsteen World Hunger' Award (1990)
Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award (1993)
Indira Gandhi Gold Medal Award of the Asiatic Society (1994)
Edinburgh Medal (1997)
9th Catalonia International Prize (1997)
Nobel Prize in Economics (1998)
Bharat Ratna Award (1999)
Honorary citizenship from the Bangladesh Government (1999)
Leontef Prize from the Global Development and Environment Institute(2000)
Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service USA (2000)
Companion of Honor (2000)
The International Humanist Award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union (2002)
The Indian Chamber of Commerce conferred up on him the Lifetime Achievement Award (2003)
Lifetime Achievement Award from the UNESCAP

Timeline
1933: Born in Dhaka
1953: Finished a B.A. in economics from the Presidency College, Kolkata
1955: Finished a B. A. in economics from the Trinity College, Cambridge
1959: Finished his H.A. and PhD from the Trinity College, Cambridge
1956: Got his first job as a Professor of Economics at the Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
1963: Joined the University of Delhi as a Professor in Economics
1970: Published his first book: Collective Choice and Social Welfare.
1972: Joined the London School of Economics as a Professor of Economics
1977: Joined the Oxford University as a Professor of Economics
1986: Joined Harvard as a Professor of Economics
1989: Received the Nobel Prize for Economics
1999: Received the Bharat Ratna Puraskar