According to sources, they were organising a meeting on right to food when the Jharkhand Police picked the activists and took them to the police station. “Nothing serious but if they get a call, they may allow the meeting to proceed,” a message by Drèze read adding that the police was trying to snatch their phones away.
Garhwa: Renowned economist and social activist Jean Drèze along with two others have been arrested by Jharkhand police in Bishunpura Garhwa area.
Right to food activist Vivek, Drèze and a third activist were taken to a local Bishunpura Garhwa police station.
According to sources, they were organising a meeting on right to food when the Jharkhand Police picked the activists and took them to the police station. “Nothing serious but if they get a call, they may allow the meeting to proceed,” a message by Drèze read adding that the police was trying to snatch their phones away.
The story is developing and more details are awaited in this matter.
Jean Drèze is a Belgian-born Indian development economist and activist whose work in India has been studying several developmental issues like hunger, famine, gender inequality, child health and education, and NREGA. He had conceptualised and drafted the first version of NREGA.
Jean Drèze studied Mathematical Economics at the University of Essex and did his Ph.D. at the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi. He has taught at the London School of Economics and the Delhi School of Economics and is currently Visiting Professor at Ranchi University as well as Honorary Professor at the Delhi School of Economics. He has made wide-ranging contributions to development economics and public policy, with special reference to India.
His research interests include rural development, social inequality, elementary education, child nutrition, health care and food security. Jean Drèze is co-author (with Amartya Sen) of Hunger and Public Action (Oxford University Press, 1989) and An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions (Penguin, 2013)”, and also one of the co-authors of the Public Report on Basic Education in India, also known as “PROBE Report”.