Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee arrives in Kolkata

He was received by Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim and state minister Bratya Basu at the airport.

 Banerjee was accorded a grand welcome at Saptaparni, at 86F Ballygunge Circular Road, his residence in the city.

In a traditional Bengali way, women blew conch shells to mark his arrival as he stepped at Saptaparni around 7:50 pm.

 Banerjee did not speak to the waiting newspersons and went straight to his 8th floor apartment where his 84-year-old mother Nirmala Banerjee lives.

Expressing joy, the residents of Saptaparni said they were overwhelmed to have a Nobel laureate as their neighbour.

While the residents have already celebrated and exchanged sweets when the news of Banerjee's Nobel Prize win was broken, they plan to organise a grand felicitation ceremony when he visits the city next time.

Banerjee, who is an American citizen now since 2017 but is a Mumbai-born Indian, became the third Bengali to win a Nobel Prize and this time in Economics “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”.

Banerjee, his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer have also been awarded the Nobel in the same category. 

He became the second Indian after Amartya Sen to win the Nobel prize in Economics.

Banerjee attended South Point School and Presidency College in the city.

Later, he completed his M.A. in economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi in 1983.

He went on to obtain a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard in 1988.

Images by Avishek Mitra/IBNS