Date:20/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/20/stories/2008122055911300.htm

National

Amartya owes it to his bright students

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Nobel laureate Amartya Sen was at his modest best here on Friday at the release of the “Arguments for a Better World: Essays in Honour of Amartya Sen,” a collection of essays put together by economists Kaushik Basu and Ravi Kanbur. He attributed his intellectual and academic achievements to his good fortune in having had a number of bright students.

Professor Sen said: “The quickest way of answering difficult questions that require hard work and great imagination is to get very bright students interested – indeed if possible excited – about the challenge of that question, and then these great minds produce remarkable research work to resolve all the issues.”

Astonishingly lucky

Labouring the point to show his appreciation of the authors of the collection – both of whom were his students – Professor Sen said: “Over my academic life, I have been astonishingly lucky in getting difficult questions answered by this interactive process, and by now a huge proportion of what I know is the produce of students I have worked with and who has taught me even as I have pretended to teach them. It is hard to think [of] a better intellectual life for an academic – the process is enjoyable and stimulating and the end product is vastly enriching.”

Referring to his upcoming book, The Idea of Justice, he noted that the thrill of intellectual arguments may be the reason enough to pursue them, “but ideas and reasoning also make it possible for us to improve the world in which we live.”