He moved with his family to West Bengal in 1945. His father Ashutosh Sen was Professor of Chemistry at Dhaka University, Development Commissioner in Delhi and then Chairman of the West Bengal Public Service Commission. Sen's family was from Wari and Manikganj, Dhaka, both in present-day Bangladesh. The famed polymath and writer, Rabindranath Tagore, gave Amartya Sen his name ( Bengali: অমর্ত্য, romanized: ômorto, lit. The German Publishers and Booksellers Association awarded him the 2020 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for his pioneering scholarship addressing issues of global justice and combating social inequality in education and healthcare.Īmartya Sen was born in a Bengali Hindu Baidya family in Santiniketan, Bengal, British India. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998 and India's highest civilian honour the Bharat Ratna the following year for his contribution to welfare economics.

He formerly served as Master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. Sen has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, economic and social justice, economic theories of famines, decision theory, development economics, public health, and measures of well-being of countries.

From the BBC programme Start the Week, 7 January 2013Īmartya Kumar Sen ( Bengali: born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher, who since 1972 has taught and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States.

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