Abhijit Banerjee meets PM Narendra Modi, describes his thinking about India as 'quite unique'

"His way of thinking about India is quite unique," Banerjee, who was born in Mumbai and studied in Kolkata's South Point school, was quoted as saying by media.

“One hears about policies but one rarely hears about the thinking behind it. He talked about the way he sees governance in particular, why in some sense, may be the mistrust of the people on the ground colours our governance and how it therefore, creates structures of elite control over the governance process: not a responsive government," he said.

"And in that process, he very nicely explained how he is trying to reform the bureaucracy to make it more responsive, to understand the ways in which people’s views need to be taken into account,” the MIT professor said.

"I think it is a very important point for India to create a bureaucracy that actually lives on the ground and gets its stimulus from how life is on the ground. Without that, we get an unresponsive government,” the Indian-origin economist said.

According to media reports, Banerjee said that he will not make any controversial statement as he has been cautioned by the PM.

"I had a cordial and good meeting. PM Modi started by cracking a joke on how media is trying to trap me to say anti-Modi things... He's been watching the TV and he's been watching you guys. And he knows what you are trying to do," Abhijit Banerjee was quoted as saying by NDTV.

Modi tweeted a picture of his meeting with Banerjee and said, "Excellent meeting with Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee. His passion towards human empowerment is clearly visible. We had a healthy and extensive interaction on various subjects. India is proud of his accomplishments. Wishing him the very best for his future endeavours."