Letters: Break from tradition

With reference to "Continuity signal for Mint Road" (August 21), I wish to bring it to the notice of your readers that it will be over 73 years on September 4 - when Urjit Patel assumes office as Reserve Bank of India governor - that a deputy governor becomes an RBI governor. It happened last in August 1943, when C D Deshmukh walked into the governor's chair. Prior to that, there was one such occasion in 1937, when Sir James Taylor succeeded the first RBI governor, Sir Osborne Smith. Between 1943 and now, there has been three occasions when a deputy governor held temporary charge of the governorship for a few weeks, pending a regular appointee, assuming the office. And there have been two cases, of C Rangarajan and Y Venugopal Reddy, when an ex-deputy governor came back to RBI to become governor, after spending time elsewhere. Thus, Patel's appointment is a break from an over seven decades-old tradition of the top job in RBI going to an outsider.

R C Mody New Delhi

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