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Government to endeavour to put Sen's ideas into practice

The Union government said on New Year's Day that it would endeavour to incorporate the ideas and theories of Nobel laureate Prof Amartya Sen into its policies.

As is known, Sen would like to see more resources being put into education, health and other social sectors.

Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said in New Delhi after meeting the economist that it would be ''our endeavour to put his ideas to practice''.

Sinha said he had a very pleasant meeting with Sen and that he was impressed by the economist's views even before he got the Nobel prize.

Sinha had called on Sen for an hour-long interaction. Finance Secretary Vijay Kelkar, chief economic adviser Shankar Acharya and Mohan Guruswamy, adviser to the finance minister, were present.

The exchange of views covered various issues like the state of public finances in India, problems and initiatives in infrastructure, public sector reforms, social development issues, decentralisation and globalisation.

Former prime minister I K Gujral had a luncheon meeting with Sen. The two discussed broad issues pertaining to the country's development.

After meeting Sinha, Sen told reporters: ''I had a wide-ranging discussion on how they perceive the problem and what they are doing to address it.''

''It was very helpful for me to learn what was going on here,'' he remarked.

Sen said he planned to have further meetings with Sinha.

The welfare economist said there has been a long history of neglect of basic issues like health and primary education and ''you know one is not looking for instant solutions''.

Sen has argued that India placed too much priority on higher education, that this has been at the expense of primary education, which costs much less in terms of resources required and that the exponential demand for higher education is in response to the demand by middle classes which formed an important pressure group.

UNI

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