These alone could have won him the Nobel. Sen, however, went on to develop the theory of social choice and imparted the ethical dimension to economics. John Rawls put forward the ethical dimension in philosophy, but Sen brought this into economics. For the past few years, there have been expectations among professional economists in India and abroad that recognition to Sen was imminent. But the Nobel eluded him.

This spawned the perception that economics abroad was more concerned about success in enterprise than about the well-being of society. The point was made that the jury selecting the Nobel winnerwas overly influenced by previous American winners; so issues of concern to the affluent society got overriding priority: for example, the inventors of derivatives were given the prize.

The Nobel award to Sen this year recognises that economics is very much about the well-being of society and the less-fortunate strata. Thus, the Swedish academy states that ``Sen has improved the theoretical foundation for comparing different distributions of society's welfare and defined new and more satisfactory indexes of poverty.''

Sen questions the utilitarian concept of economic well-being, which focuses on the average income in society. He holds up the Rawlsian concept of a just society. A just society focuses on the maximum well-being of the least fortunate sections of society: Sen's maximin principle. Sen brings to bear two issues: it is not enough to measure poverty; it is essential to measure the depth of poverty (the Sen index).

Thus, how poor are the poor below the poverty line? The question that Sen alsoraises is that besides income poverty, there are deprivations in terms of health, education, law and order, and gender bias. These deprivations result from the social order, underpinned by powerful social coalitions. State policy must override these coalitions. Sen's analysis and concerns have gained attention in the west, as reflected by the Nobel prize. India will rejoice in the honour conferred on Sen, but it has yet to take him seriously in fashioning social and economic policy. It was left to a Pakistani economist, the late Mahbub-ul Haq, to develop the Human Development Index based on Sen's ideas.