Kolkata: Nobel laureate and economist Amartya Sen has turned down the Banga Bibhushan Award being conferred by the West Bengal government, sources said on Monday. Sen’s daughter Antara Dev Sen said that she had spoken to her father in the morning about it and that he told her he had received innumerable awards throughout his life, so this honour should go to others.
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The Left Front had appealed to intellectuals, including another Nobel laureate Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee to refuse the award by the ‘corrupt’ state government whose minister is involved in the teacher recruitment scam. Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee introduced the Banga Bibhushan Award in 2011 to honour those who have contributed in the field of literature, art and in public services. Reacting to Sen declining the award, an artist Subhaprasanna Bhattacharjee, a member of the Trinamool Congress’s intellectual cell has said that the party has a very good relationship with Sen, so there is nothing to read between the lines.
