Sen lists challenges before India, world

Lack of universal health coverage, adequate public health institutions, educational institutions, problems of child and maternal malnutrition, lack of access to basic medical health facilities still pose to be some of the biggest challenges for India and the world at large, feels Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen.

Sen was delivering the Penguin Annual Lecture 2009.

He expressed deep concern over such developmental issues and emphasised on the need to address issues of child malnutrition, continued misery of least advanced people, lack of access to basic medical education, primary health care, gender inequality which are often crowded in the political discourse and process.

On the issue of Singur and state government’s approach, Sen said if somebody plans to set up an industry, "There is a strong argument for land to be bought." The investors should buy land from the market.

Land acquisition should be the last resort, a point he had made earlier also.

The Singur debacle, in his view, illustrated "the need for a public debate" or public engagement on what is the way forward.

Similarly, on the issue of trade unionism which of late has been affecting the life of everybody in the country one way or the other, especially in the sphere of public services, Sen iterated that the trade unions needed to think about the consequence of their actions and responsibility.