Meet The Governor

Eminent economist Raghuram Rajan has been appointed as the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. All eyes are now on the new Governor designate. India awaits Rajan’s tenure with bated breath, in the hope that his grit and dynamic personality will steer the country through choppy economic waters, propel the reforms engine and sell the India growth story to the outside world.

Born

February 3, 1963 (age 50), Bhopal

Qualifications

• Graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering
• Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
• Ph. D. in Management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Previous Roles

• Currently the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India.
• Formerly Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
• In his previous work with the Indian government, Rajan was at the helm of a  Planning Commission-appointed committee on financial reforms, and honourary economic adviser to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
• Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Rajan have helped lead a government push since September 2012 to revive investment, woo foreign inflows and avert a credit-rating downgrade.
• Rajan’s body of work includes steps on the recent tightening measures and the push to encourage foreign investments.

Books

• Saving Capitalism From The Capitalists
• Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy

Facts To Know

• Raghuram Rajan will take over as the RBI Governor just in time for the forthcoming mid-quarter policy review on September 18.
• After two IAS officers – Y V Reddy and Subbarao – at the helm, the RBI governor’s post now goes to an economist. The other economist to be appointed as Governor in recent times was Bimal Jalan.
• One of the youngest governors, Rajan shares a commonality with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was also 50-years old when he became the RBI Governor.
• Rajan was appointed as the youngest-ever Economic Counselor and Director of Research (Chief Economist) at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from October 2003-December 2006.