Modi has an ‘excellent’ meeting with Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee

Dr. Banerjee has been a vocal critic of several of the government's economic decisions.

October 22, 2019 01:06 pm | Updated December 03, 2021 07:06 am IST - NEW DELHI

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee on October 22, 2019.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee on October 22, 2019.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with Economics Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee on Tuesday, when they discussed various issues, including the former’s views on governance and how he was trying to reform the bureaucracy.

“Excellent meeting with Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee. His passion towards human empowerment is clearly visible. We had a healthy and extensive interaction on various subjects. India is proud of his accomplishments. Wishing him the very best for his future endeavours,” Mr. Modi tweeted from his handle.

Also read | Who is Abhijit Banerjee, one of the winners of 2019 Economics Nobel?

After the meeting, Dr. Banerjee said in a statement:

 “It was a privilege to have this meeting with the PM. The PM was kind enough to give me quite a lot of time and to talk about his way of thinking about India, which was quite unique because one hears about policies but one rarely hears about the thinking behind it.

“He talked about the way he sees governance in particular and why the mistrust of the people on the ground colours our governance and it therefore creates structures of elite control over the governance process, not a responsive government.

“In that process, he also very nicely explained how he is trying to reform the bureaucracy to make it more responsive, to understand the ways in which people’s views need to be taken into account and expose them more to the realities on the ground.”

The Nobel laureate stated that he thought it was important for India to create a bureaucracy that actually lived on the ground and got its stimulus from how life was on the ground. “Without this, we get an unresponsive government”.

Dr. Banerjee has been a vocal critic of several of the government's economic decisions, including demonetisation, the corporate tax rate cuts, moving items to lower GST rates slabs, to name a few. However, he said that the Prime Minister started his conversation with a joke about how the media was trying to trap him [Banerjee] into saying anti-Modi things.

Piyush Goyal’s comments

The meeting with Mr Modi comes a few days after Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said Dr. Banerjee’s views were totally left-leaning and there was no need for the government to agree with them.

“I congratulate Abhijit Banerjee was winning the Nobel Prize, but you all know about his thinking. His thinking is totally left-leaning. He supported NYAY and praised NYAY but India’s people totally rejected his thinking. It is not necessary for us to agree with his thinking, and especially when the people have rejected the idea, there is no need for us to agree to it,” Mr. Goyal said on October 18. 

Top News Today

Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.