Oral history interview with Amartya Sen, 2003

Biographical Note

Advisor, consultant to Secretary General and numerous UN agencies

Scope and Contents

Background and childhood: Born in Santiniketan, India, 1933; education: St. Gregory's missionary school, Dhaka, Santiniketan school, Presidency College, Calcutta, Trinity College, Cambridge; career: professor, economics, Delhi University, 1960s, advisor and consultant to Secretary-General, International Labour Organization [ILO], United Nations Industrial Development Organization [UNIDO], United Nations Children's Fund [UNICEF], United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD], World Food Programme [WFP], United Nations Development Fund for Women [UNIFEM], World Institute for Development Economics Research [WIDER], and United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], co-chair of International Commission on Human Security, 2002-3, president of Econometric Society, American Economic Association, Indian Economic Association, International Economic Association, and Oxfam, master of Trinity College, Cambridge University, 1998-2004, Lamont university professor, economics and philosophy, Harvard University; publications: Collective Choice and Social Welfare, On Economic Inequality, Poverty and Famines, On Ethics and Economics, Development as Freedom, Rationality and Freedom; awards: Nobel Prize in Economics, 1998; themes: family reminiscences, influences of poet Rabindranath Tagore, political incarceration of uncle under the Raj, recollections of witnessing a murder at age eight, reminiscences of Bengal famine and media response, idea of basic needs approach, Mahbub ul Haq and the Human Development Reports, human security

Subjects

• Economists--Interviews.
• Famines--India--Bengal--Personal narratives.
• Human rights--Developing countries.
• Interviews
• Jolly, Richard, interviewer.
• Nobel Prize winners--Interviews.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Poverty.
• Sen, Amartya, 1933---Interviews.
• Tagore, Rabindranath, 1861-1941.
• United Nations--History.
• United Nations--Officials and employees--Interviews.
• United Nations Development Programme.