INDIA'S RECORD ON SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT ''DISASTROUS'': SEN

New Delhi - Dr Amartya Sen, who has done India proud by winning this year's Nobel prize for economics, views his country's socio- economic progress with mixed feelings but says record in the area of social advancement is ''pretty disastrous.'' ''I think it's been a very mixed record,'' he said in an interview to 'Sunday' weekly a day after India's 51st Independence Day on the country's socio- economic progress, reports PTI.

''If you think of three different aspects of it, the attempt at sustaining political democracy -- elections, civil rights, the freedom of the press and so on-- has been by and large quite successful,'' Sen remarked. However, he said,''if you look at the subject of economic development the record is mixed. There are some successes and some big failures too." ''Altogether, I'd say it has been rather disappointing. Turning now to the third subject, social advancement, especially elimination of social deprivation, in the form of illiteracy, lack of basic health care, chronic under nourishment of children and so on, I think our record is pretty disastrous,'' Sen observed.