South Korea from a country that had relatively little primary education became close to universal literacy in the course of 25, 30 years, in a way trying to replicate what Japan had done earlier. They were learning to some extent from the Japanese experience too. So I think, in a sense, the East Asians were following a path, which all other countries including South Asia could follow but chose not too.
Amartya SenThere is considerable evidence that women's education and literacy tend to reduce the mortality rates of children
Amartya SenStarvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough food to eat.
Amartya SenThere are some people who say that theyยre concerned only with poverty but not inequality. But I donยt think that is a sustainable thought. A lot of poverty is, in fact, inequality because of the connection between income and capabilityยhaving adequate resources to take part in the life of the community.
Amartya SenI attempted to see famines as broad "economic" problems (concentrating on how people can buy food, or otherwise get entitled to it), rather than in terms of the grossly undifferentiated picture of aggregate food supply for the economy as a whole.
Amartya SenThere may be countries [where] there's no gender inequality in schooling, even in higher education, but [where there is] gender inequality in high business. Japan is a very good example of that. You might find cases in the United States where at one level women's equality has progressed tremendously. You don't have the kind of problem of higher women's mortality as you see in South Asia, North Africa, and East Asia, China, too, and yet for American women there are some fields in which equality hasn't yet come.
Amartya Sen