In 1933, when he was born, he was named by none other than Rabindra Nath Tagore. Amartya, meaning "other-worldly or immortal" was chosen because Tagore felt that the boy would be extraordinary.

In 1998, the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences selected Amartya Sen for the 1998 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel. Sen thus became the sixth Indian to be awarded the Nobel Prize.

As a schoolboy in Santiniketan, Sen dreamt of becoming a Sanskrit scholar or a physicist, but realized early in college the Economics was his true calling. Apart from his extraordinary contributions in the field of Economics, he has made forays into philosphy, logic, and literary criticism.

 Important Dates

1933: Born in Shantiniketan (West Bengal)
1953: Graduated from Presidency College, Calcutta
1957-63: Fellow, Trinity College
1963-71: Professor, Delhi School of Economics
1971-77: Professor, London School of Economics
1977-80: Nuffield College, Oxford
1980-87: Drummond Professor of political economy, Oxford
1987-98: Lamont Professor of economics and philosophy, Harvard
1998: Master, Trinity College
1998: Nobel Prize in Economics

Collective Choice and Social Welfare in 1970. He has been the Lamont Professor of both economics and philosophy at Harvard University for over a decade. In 1996, Sen became the first non-American president of the American Economic Association. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was at the London School of Economics and Oxford.

"The fact that economics is also concerned with the poor, the downtrodden, the underdogs of society is something that is very close to my heart."

"I know of no one who was affected by the famine ... no relation, no friend, no one I ever associated with. That, to me, was a great insight later, I thought, though I didn't see it at that time. I just thought we were lucky."
(On the 1943 Bengal famine.)

"The economies that have been most successful in the recent development of world trade, namely Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and now China, have all been very oriented towards education. Unfortunately in India, education is still a neglected and under-appreciated value."

"It is not a question of more or less government but what kind of government."

"I take the view that globalisation is ultimately a major force for good, and indeed, if adequately backed by national policies, it can be a major force of prosperity in the world."