The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for the year 2019 has been bagged by an Indian origin guy, Abhijit Banerjee. Although he thought of it as ‘an assault to the system’ and hence went back to bed after getting the news of him winning the Nobel peace prize in the early morning.
As soon as Abhijeet Banerjee got the news of him winning the Nobel Prize, he feared it as an “assault on the system” and went back to bed. He said in an interview, “I’m not an early morning person.” and that he got the news in the very early morning.
Nobel Prize in one of the most prestigious recognitions in the world. While the relatives, friends and closed ones from across India and Europe started celebrating the news of Abhijeet winning the Nobel Peace Prize, he thought it wiser to get back to bed after receiving the news as he said the news of his win came ‘very early in the morning’ & he is not a morning person. He said it would be an assault to his system if he stayed up and did not continue to sleep. He said it in a phone interview with the Nobel Committee.
“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,” Mr Banerjee said in a short 4-and-half-minute clip released by the Nobel Committee on YouTube.
Although he could maintain his system for so long as he kept receiving congratulating calls from his loved ones from around the world for the winning. Further, when he was being asked if he managed to sleep for a reasonable time after the win, he said: “Yeah, but not for long…I kept getting congratulation calls after the announcement. Once press conferences concluded and news spread to India and Europe, I had no chance to rest. I had a 40-minute interval period between the news and the calls, where I slept.”
Abhijeet is not alone in this win. His colleague and spouse Esther Duflo & colleague Michael Kremer were collective co-winners of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for their “experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”
Not only this, Abhijeet’s Wife Duflo, as per a report by the Associated Press, Duflo, who is a 46-year-old professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the youngest person to win the economics prize, and also the only second-ever woman to receive the prize.
“In a sense, it’s been an entire family enterprise, with research and working at MIT. It becomes much more pleasant when you do it with your partner,” Abhijeet quoted.
Mr Banerjee believes that the Nobel Prize belonged to all the people “who do real things, not people like us.”
“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,” he added.
President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and political leaders including former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal congratulated Mr Banerjee on Twitter.
