NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee on Tuesday and held what the former said was a “healthy and extensive interaction on various subjects”.Banerjee, who won this year’s economics Nobel along with his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, termed his meeting with Modi “a unique experience”.The MIT professor has praised Modi government’s initiatives like Jan Dhan Yojana and Ayushman Bharat. However, he had criticised some economic decisions of the government, like demonetisation and reduction in corporate tax, besides saying the Indian economy was going into a tailspin.With some in BJP, such as commerce minister Piyush Goyal publicly terming Banerjee as a “left-leaning economist whose views had been rejected by the people”, many expected his interaction with the PM to be a frosty affair.However, the two belied the estimate, with the visuals showing them relaxed. In fact, the PM started the meeting by cracking a joke on how the media was trying to trap him to spout anti-Modi views, Banerjee disclosed.“He’s been watching TV and he’s been watching you guys. He knows what you are trying to do,” Banerjee said.Healthy interaction with Abhijit: PMNobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee refrained from taking any questions linked to the health of the economy after his meeting with PM Narendra Modi. He also did not comment on government’s policies.Tuesday’s meeting with Modi, which happened in the wake of commerce minister Piyush Goyal’s comments, showed that both had a healthy discussion. Banerjee on his part thanked the PM for the meeting and sparing “quite a bit of time”. “Excellent meeting with Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee. We had a healthy and extensive interaction on various subjects. India is proud of his accomplishments. Wishing him the very best for his future endeavours,” Modi tweeted.Banerjee praised Modi’s efforts at reforming the bureaucracy. “It was really a privilege to have this meeting with the PM. He was kind enough to give me quite a lot of time and to talk about his way of thinking about India, which was quite unique because one hears about policies but one rarely hears about the thinking behind that,” Banerjee said after the meeting. He said Modi talked about the way he sees governance in particular and why in some sense the “mistrust of the people on the ground colours our governance and how it creates structures of elite control over governance process”.“He very nicely explained how he is trying to reform bureaucracy to make it more responsive to understand the ways in which people’s views need to be taken into account, expose them more to the reality on the ground,” Banerjee said. “I think it’s an important point for India to create a bureaucracy that actually lives on the ground and gets its stimulus from how life is on the ground. Without that we get an unresponsive government. Thank you PM that was a unique experience for me,” he said.