By PATRICK JONAS

HE WALKED into the room with slow, measured steps. Nobel Prize-winning economist Prof Amartya Sen looked visibly tired after the long journey from the United States. But the moment he sat down and questions were thrown at him, he was a different man.

His alert mind needed very little time to analyse the questions and his answers were to the point. With relevant examples laced with a dash of humour, he made economics look easy.

What was his assessment of the world economy?

Prof Sen, 75, advocates hope but he warns that the recession will probably get a lot worse than it is today and then get better. He feels that the recession will be over by the end of 2010.

His view is that the worst can be avoided 'if actions are more determined, more intelligent and more informed than they seem to be so far'.

Depression is a time, he says, when people are willing to look at long-running problems. 'I am not saying that it makes recession a positive thing, but there could be something positive that we could try to get out of the depressing negative picture that we see in the recession today,' he adds.

He says healthcare is an example where governments could help. He points to Kerala which provides state medical cover for all with excellent results.

China, for instance, did away with state health cover in 1979. It was the same year it opened up its economy.

While the Chinese economy grew rapidly, its life expectancy slowed down.

In 1979, he says, Kerala and China had exactly the same level of life expectancy and infant mortality.

'Today Kerala's infant mortality is less than half that of China's and life expectancy is four or five years longer than China's - that indicates that there is something China has lost out on by not combining their massive economic growth with a health-based insurance,' he says.

Contrary to what many say, Prof Sen believes that China and India are not drivers of the world economy. 'The Chinese are still growing positively but at a much slower rate and so is India. To that extent it is not only good news for the Chinese and the Indians, it is good news for the rest of the world too. So I wouldn't say they will be driving the world economy. I don't think there are any chauffeurs to the world economy today.'

The trade between China and India, according to him, has proved beneficial to both, more so for India. The India-China trade makes each economy sustain the other to some extent. 'So in that sense the Chinese and Indian economic picture is, relatively speaking, less negative news,' he says.

Prof Sen was in Singapore on Feb 18 to deliver the keynote address at a conference on Buddhism. He did not have much time to recover from jet lag for he was soon on his way to India for a mentor group meeting of the Nalanda University project. -tabla!