Published 00:03 IST, October 15th 2019
Abhijit Banerjee fell asleep right after Nobel Prize call, reasons why
Abhijit Banerjee said that he went back to bed after receiving a phone call from Sweden informing about him winning the Nobel Prize for Economics
Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee, after receiving the phone call from Sweden on Monday informing about him winning the Nobel Prize for Economics, stated that "he went back to bed" after his huge achievement. During a phone interview to the Nobel Committee, the Nobel Prize winner said, "I figured it would be an assault to the system if I don't continue my sleep." Asking if he managed to sleep for a reasonable time after the call, Banerjee said, "Yeah, not long. I kept getting calls after a while. Once press conferences happen and news spread to India and Europe, I had no chance. I had a 40-minute interval period where I slept (sic)." The Nobel Committee released a short four and a half minute clip of the phone call with Banerjee on YouTube.
"It was very early in the morning. I'm not an early morning person. I figured it would be an assault to the system if I don't continue to sleep," said Abhijit Banerjee.
On winning the Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize winner Abhijit Banerjee said that the win has been special as he shares it with his colleague - Michael Kremer and his spouse - Esther Duflo. "It's been an entire family enterprise in a sense, between research and working at MIT. It becomes much more pleasant when you do it with your partner," he said. Speaking about the work done by several organisations and people in order to try to eradicate poverty, Banerjee said, "It reflects on the fact that somehow while people often pay lip service to the welfare of all, this is something that will always be the immediate focus of Prize like this."
The lesson to learn
Speaking about the lesson from Banerjee's experiments, the Nobel laureate said, "It is a two-way relationship. You should not have too much faith in your own rationality or too much faith in the rationality of others. We all learn together on the way the world is." He further added, "I really owe to those with whom we work, whose lives we study in many ways. And also the people who work with them. We've learned a huge amount from organisations like Seva Mandir and Pratham, for example. In my personal experience, these organisations work on a very large scale with very poor people."
Prominent political leaders congratulate Banerjee
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Abhijit Banerjee for winning the Nobel Prize award for Economic Sciences on Twitter for his ‘notable contributions in the field of poverty alleviation’. Along with him, former President Pranab Mukherjee also congratulated him by saying that 'India as indeed Bengal is proud of you'. While President Ram Nath Kovind said that the winners' research has helped the economist get a better understanding of poverty alienation methods. Several other leaders and politicians have expressed their happiness towards his win.
Nobel Prize winners and their work to eradicate poverty
Along with Abhijit Banerjee, two others who received the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel award are - Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer. Duflo is also the wife of Laureate Abhijit Banerjee. The three of them were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work on eradicating global poverty. According to reports, the key to their research is to take the issue of poverty and break it down into smaller questions which can be more credibly answered. The research conducted by this year’s Laureates has been proved to improve the world's ability to fight poverty.
Updated 10:48 IST, October 15th 2019