Indian-American economist Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee and French-American Esther Duflo were conferred the Nobel Prize for Economics at Stockholm in Sweden , alongside their American colleague Michael Kremer. Banerjee is married to Duflo and the couple wore traditional Indian attire for the prestigious occasion.
Abhijit wore a black bandhgala jacket paired with an off-white dhoti, and wife Esther wore a blue, two-toned saree, while Michael Kremer was spotted wearing a black suit.
‘The Nobel Prize’ tweeted “Watch Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer receive their medals and diplomas at the #NobelPrize award ceremony today. Congratulations!
Watch Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer receive their medals and diplomas at the #NobelPrize award ceremony today. Congratulations!
They were awarded the 2019 Prize in Economic Sciences “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.” pic.twitter.com/c3ltP7EXcF
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) December 10, 2019
They were awarded the 2019 Prize in Economic Sciences “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”
The Twitter post was flooded with comments and congratulatory wishes from across the world, with 1.4K retweets and 3.6K likes.
The three economists were awarded medals and the prize money of nine million Swedish krona (approx Rs 6.7 crore), which will be shared among them.
As “#AbhijitBanerjee” trends on Twitter, tweeple are praising the couple’s attire, saying “Moment of pride for Indians as Abhijeet Banerjee and his wife received biggest prize in the world… wearing Indian attire is icing on cake”.
While another wrote: “it’s so heartwarming to see #AbhijitBanerjee in Dhoti and #EstherDuflo in Saree ….Proud moment for all Indian”
it’s so heartwarming to see #AbhijitBanerjee in Dhoti and #EstherDuflo in Saree ….
Proud moment for all Indians 🇮🇳#NobelPrize— Shruti Pandey (@Shruti20081) December 10, 2019
Yet another one said: “We live in an era where people are banning movies and pre wedding shootings for cultural in-approproation , whereas progressive Indians like #AbhijitBanerjee and her better half are showing the world what Indian culture is. Thank you for making us proud sir.”
Banerjee is an alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University and the University of Calcutta. He is the second person of Indian Origin to be awarded the prize after Amartya Sen who received it in 1988 and the 10th person of Indian origin or citizenship to win a Nobel.
Banerjee, his wife Esther Duflo, both working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Harvard University professor Michael Kremer jointly won the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize on October 14 “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”
The Swedish Academy of sciences awarded the Nobel Prize to the three for their research which, “has considerably improved our ability to fight global poverty. In just two decades, their new experiment-based approach has transformed development economics, which is now a flourishing field of research.”