22, Nov 2011

Amartya Sen and Sir Partho Dasgupta were proud winners of the Stevenson award, one of the highest honors of the Cambridge University. Noble laureate Sen was the first Indian to bag this award in 1956. Dasgupta, a Cambridge professor, won the award in 1967 for his contribution to nutrition and developmental economics. And this year it is 23-year-old Mahima Khanna, a resident of Alipore. She topped the 2010–2011 MPhil class of economics at the university, a success that gets her the most acclaimed Stevenson prize. Her work is related to trade liberalization and informality, based on evidences from India’s manufacturing sector.

The young economist is currently a trade analyst in Mumbai and aspires for a career in the World Bank. She says that the size of the informal sector in India is growing and that the government should make the most of it to drive the economy. She is very interested in studying India’s fiscal deficits and interest rates.