Goyal downplays Amartya Sen's observations

Union Minister Piyush Goyal today sought to downplay the observations made by Nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen on the present government saying that he had been saying this for a long time.

Sen had said yesterday that the country had made a quantum jump in the wrong direction since 2014.

"He has been saying this for a long time", Goyal, who holds the portfolios of finance, coal, railways and corporate affairs, said when his comments were sought.

Sen had said at a book launch in Delhi yesterday, "Things have gone pretty badly wrong... It has taken a quantum jump in the wrong direction since 2014. We are getting backwards in the fastest-growing economy.

"Now, India is the second worst. Pakistan has managed to shield us from being the worst," Sen said.