Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar says ready to serve nation

NITI Aayog's newly appointed Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Sunday that he is looking forward to serve the country in his new role.

"Look forward to serve the nation with my role @nitiaayog @pmoindia," Rajiv Kumar, a noted economist, said in a tweet.

Kumar was named the NITI Aayog Vice Chairman on Saturday, following the resignation of the incumbent Arvind Panagariya on August 1, who is returning to his teaching position at Columbia University in the US.

Rajiv Kumar, a senior fellow at Centre for Policy Research (CPR), is also chancellor of the Gokhale Institute of Economics and Politics in Pune and the founding director of Pahle India Foundation, a non-profit research organisation that specialises in policy-oriented research and analysis.

Before coming to CPR, he was Secretary General of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci).

Rajiv Kumar has also served as Director and Chief Executive of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and chief economist of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), as well as in positions with the Asian Development Bank and the Indian Ministries of Industries and Finance.

He at present sits on the boards of several international and national institutions, including the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center in Riyadh, the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and Asia in Jakarta, the State Bank of India, and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.

He was also a member of the Indian government's National Security Advisory Board between 2006 and 2008.

Rajiv Kumar holds a DPhil in economics from Oxford and a Ph.D. from Lucknow University.

--IANS

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