Abhijit Banerjee, who won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics with his French-American wife Esther Duflo and American Michael Kremer, was born and raised in Kolkata.
The trio won the Nobel for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. Banerjee studied at the Kolkata’s premier South Point School and then attended Presidency College (now university). He completed his MA in economics from JNU in Delhi.
Besides, his parents were both professors in economics in the city of joy – Kolkata. The city, in fact, has a deep connection with the Nobel Prize, with at least five winners of the Nobel Prize having links — by birth or work — with the West Bengal capital.
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Here’s a look at the city’s Nobel Prize winners
1. Amartya Sen (1998): Prof Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998 for his research on welfare economics. Sen was born in Shantiniketan in West Bengal.
2. Mother Teresa (1979): Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She set up the Missionaries for Charity in Kolkata, then called Calcutta and continued to live there until her death on 5 September 1997.
3. C V Raman (1930): Chandrashekhara Venkata Raman, who won the award for physics in 1930, became the first person from Asia to win a science Nobel.
4. Rabindranath Tagore (1913): Rabindranath Tagore, the poet, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to have won a Nobel Prize.
5. Ronald Ross (1902): British doctor Ronald Ross won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1902 for his work on the transmission of malaria. He worked at the Presidency General Hospital in Kolkata and even today, the Ronald Ross Memorial building stands tall in the city.