Health, education neglected more by NDA govt: Amartya Sen

Accusing the Modi government of neglecting education and health care, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Tuesday said the bias is much more evident than during the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime including on issues related to religion.

“Education and health care were neglected by the UPA government and it is more neglected by the present government,” the noted economist said at an event here.

“... It was not that the previous government was not biased in terms of its own views... but biaseness is much more evident now,” Sen said, while also referring to the issues related to religion.

“India has survived... There was Shah Bano case, Babri Masjid case...,” he said.

Sen further said India's nuclear power plant poses danger and cautioned, “I am worried our environmental sensitivities are confined to carbon” and referred to the recent agreement between India and Russia on expanding cooperation in atomic energy space.

“What if instead of 26/11 type attack killing 170, (the) terrorists bombed Tarapur killing a million,” Sen added.

He was speaking at the release function of economist Bina Agarwal’s three-volume compendium Gender Challenges.