Who is Raghuram Rajan? 10 interesting facts

Here are some interesting facts and a list of people who have held this key post in the past.


1) Well for starters, he is the person who will decide the key rates – cash reserve ratio (CRR), repo and reverse repo while reviewing the Monetary Policy. Changes in any of these rates could, in turn, prompt banks to fine tune their lending and borrowing rates.

2) If you haven’t guessed it till now, Raghuram Rajan has been appointed as the next Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as the current governor’s (Duvvuri Subbarao’s) term ends on September 4, 2013.

3) Rajan will be 50 years and six months old when he assumes charge for a period of three years.

4) As the 23rd governor of the RBI, Bhopal born Rajan, was chosen for role ahead of Arvind Mayaram, secretary department of economic affairs and Saumitra Chaudhuri, member, Planning Commission.

5) After studying electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and business administration at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Rajan did his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

6) He became the Economic Counselor and Director of Research (Chief Economist) of the International Monetary Fund in September 2003— the youngest ever to be appointed to this post.

7) In 2003, Rajan was awarded the inaugural Fischer Black Prize by the American Finance Association for contributions to finance by an economist under 40.

8) His most widely-read book, Saving Capitalism from the Capitalist, was co-authored with fellow Chicago GSB professor Luigi Zingales and published in 2004.

9) Credited for predicting the 2008 global financial crisis, Rajan was appointed as the youngest-ever Economic Counselor and Director of Research (chief economist) at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from October 2003 to December 2006.

10) Rajan returned to the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago in 2007 where he is the Eric J Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Finance.

Former Governors
Name	Tenure
Sir Osborne Smith	1 April 1935 – 30 June 1937
Sir James Braid Taylor	1 July 1937 – 17 February 1943
Sir C. D. Deshmukh	11 August 1943 – 30 June 1949
Sir Benegal Rama Rau	1 July 1949 – 14 January 1957
K. G. Ambegaonkar	14 January 1957 – 28 February 1957
H. V. R. Iyengar	1 March 1957 – 28 February 1962
P. C. Bhattacharya	1 March 1962 - 30 June 1967
L. K. Jha	1 July 1967 – 3 May 1970
B. N. Adarkar	4 May 1970 – 15 June 1970
S. Jagannathan	16 June 1970 – 19 May 1975
N. C. Sen Gupta	19 May 1975 – 19 August 1975
K. R. Puri	20 August 1975 – 2 May 1977
M. Narasimham	3 May 1977 – 30 November 1977
Dr. I. G. Patel	1 December 1977 – 15 September 1982
Dr. Manmohan Singh	16 September 1982 – 14 January 1985
A. Ghosh	15 January 1985 – 4 February 1985
R N Malhotra	04-02-1985 to 22-12-1990
S. Venkitaramanan	22-12-1990 to 21-12-1992
C. Rangarajan	22-12-1992 to 21-11-1997
Dr. Bimal Jalan	22-11-1997 to 06-09-2003
Dr. Y V Reddy	06-09-2003 to 05-09-2008
D. Subbarao	05-09-2008 to 04-09-2013

Source: Wikipedia