Amartya Sen, recipient of the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, is one of India's most internationally known and respected intellectuals. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, UK, from 1998 to 2004 before becoming a professor at Harvard University, USA. His books include Freedom, Rationality, and Social Choice and The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity.
For Amartya Sen, tolerance (particularly religious tolerance), education, democracy, and the sharing and redistribution of wealth are vital elements in the success of a nation, and especially of India. The thirteen essays in this book bear witness to the universal relevance of his approach. Stressing that there can be no economic success without social justice, Amartya Sen is critical of the inequalities suffered by the Indian populace in face of the country's two-speed educational system, for example, which favours boys from wealthy families. He highlights the role of the media in economic development.

But for Amartya Sen, cultural attitudes are also part of the package. Whether he is writing about the history of India's numerous calendars, or the Muslim world's contribution to Indian culture, or the literary works of Rabinadrath Tagore, he makes the case here for a pluralist Indian identity, strongly rooted in the country's traditions as well as in the modern world.