Previous Year Question
Who among the following introduced the concept of entitlements in food security?
M. S. Swaminathan
Atul Pranay
Samali Srikant
Amartya Sen
Select the correct answer from the code given below:
1 and 2
Only 4
3 and 4
Only 1
Correct Answer: B
Detailed Solution
Economist Amartya Sen developed the Entitlement Approach to explain hunger and famine. His 1981 book Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation is particularly associated with this approach.
Here, Entitlement does not merely mean a legal right. It refers to the means and opportunities through which a person can obtain food. These may include food obtained through one's own production, purchasing food through wages or income, exchange of goods, and transfers received from the State or other sources.
The significance of this approach is that people may suffer from hunger even when food is available in an economy if their food entitlement fails—for example, when employment or income is lost or when food prices rise beyond their purchasing power.
M. S. Swaminathan made major contributions to Indian agriculture, the Green Revolution and food production, but the Entitlement concept asked in this question is associated with Amartya Sen.