Public debate on corruption suggests need for change: Amartya Sen

Without referring to the Jan Lokpal movement launched by Anna Hazare, Nobel laureate and economist Amartya Sen on Tuesday said public debates on corruption in India “have brought out sharply the need for changes related to accountability”.

Sen was in the city on Tuesday for the inaugural function of the 94th annual conference of the Indian Economic Association (IEA) at the Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University.  He added that these changes should be sensibly pursued to strengthen the functioning of democratic India.

Making a comparison with China, Sen said it would be hard to deny that there is a big contrast between what India has already been able to achieve in terms of democratic governance and what many countries, including China, have accomplished.

He said interest in social and political participation seemed to stretch even to the poorest parts of the Indian population. Drawing a contrast with China on capital punishment, he said, “China executes more people in a week, in a great many weeks, than India has since independence in 1947.”

Sen slammed critics of the food security bill tabled in Parliament and said, “The critics are criticising the bill over the issue of unaffordability of providing subsidised food to the Indian poor when India has quite a large ratio of undernourished children than any other country.

“The food security bill will cost the Union government additional subsidy of Rs27,000 crore but the critics feel it is unaffordable. However, according to the finance ministry report, the exemption of import duty on diamond and gold from custom duties cost Rs50,000 crore in a year.”

So the idea that India has no public money to feed even the most food deprived people in the world is a figment of imagination.”

Deputy chairman of the planning commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, IEA president Sukhdeo Thorat,  IEA secretary Anil Kumar Thakur, state minister and chancellor of Bharati Vidyapeeth University Patangrao Kadam and vice chancellor Shivajirao Kadam were present for the inaugural function.

Ahluwalia in his speech said the recent performance of the Indian economy was good, but there was no guarantee that it will remain the same in the future. Subsidies like those given in the energy sector were very high and there was a need for reduction in dysfunctional subsidies excluding food.