When the Nobel prize was announced, it was Bengalis who cheered the most among all the Indians. In fact, they had a lot to cheer as one of their men has once again bagged the prestigious Nobel prize. Of the nine Nobel winners from India, six are no doubt from Bengal or having a Bengal connection – so the Bengalis can cheer a lot than all other Indians.
This time, Economist Abhijit Banerjee along with his wife Esther Duflo has won the Nobel for Economics. He was born in Mumbai and did his school education in Kolkatta. After his graduation in Kolkata, he moved to Jawaharlal Nehru University where he did his Post Graduation in Economics. He received his PhD from Harvard University. He is at present professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Tracing the other Bengalis who won the Nobel prize, the first name is of Rabndranath Tagore. He won the Nobel in 1933 for Literature. He is credited of being the first non european and the first non white to get the Nobel in literature.
Then in 1930, C V Raman, who was the professor of Physics at the Calcutta university bagged the Nobel for Physics in 1930. Raman is the first Asian to get the prize in Physics Nobel.
Mother Teresa, the Albanian born missionary who had made Kolkatta her home, was awarded the Nobel for Peace in 1979. She is the founder of Missionaries of Charity, which is headquartered in Kolkata.
Bengal has another economist who was awarded the Nobel in 1998. It is none other than Amartya Sen. He was given the Nobel for his contributions on welfare economics.
Ronald Ross who had stayed in kolkatta for long and did his research here was awarded the Nobel for Medicine 1902 for discovering malarial parasite.
