by BEENA SARWAR
The “Kerala Model”, commented Naseem in his obituary, “brought a sea change in development thinking, which was until then obsessed with the goal of achieving high GDP growth rates. Ideas of equitable growth, basic needs and poverty reduction started moving closer to the centre stage, although the IFI’s infatuation with growth remained undiminished. However, two decades later, our own protagonist of ‘growthmanship’, Dr. Mahbubul Haq relented in his passion and turned towards the ideas implicit in the Kerala model and in collaboration with Raj’s close colleague Amartya Sen, persuaded the UNDP to carry out the work on Human Development Indicators (HDIs) which started playing a larger role than the GDP in the framing of development policies.
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(Thanks to Pritam Rohila)