The Fight Over India's Future

Go for growth or social change? A feud between economists boils over

Updated Aug. 3, 2013 6:22 a.m. ET

Indian politics isn't generally known for its intellectual bent, so it was a curious sight last week when two Ivy League professors were thrust into the political limelight here. Harvard's Amartya Sen and Columbia's Jagdish Bhagwati are two of India's most eminent economists. Mr. Sen is a Nobel laureate and former master of Trinity College, Cambridge; Mr. Bhagwati is a much-decorated scholar of international trade. Both are highly respected, both have recently published books on Indian development—and both have been engaged in a...

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