BANGALORE: The Food Security Bill may have defects in its formulation, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has observed. Speaking on the sidelines of the Infosys Science Foundation Prize 2011, he said, “I do not think that the government got the exact formulation of the Food Bill.”
However, Sen lauded the effort to bring about such a bill. The Nobel prize winner in economics also added that the decline in growth rate should not be a concern for the country, but large number of mal-nourished children and decreasing literacy amongst girl children should be more worrisome.
Inferring the social indicator of South Asia, he said that rise in mal-nourishment and illiteracy had taken the country from second best to second worst. Added to this, he criticised the portrayal of the government by the media. “I think the government policies are based on what the people demand. It should know that we fight for the petrol prices to be reduced even if the petrol is for a Mercedez Benz.”