Raghuram Rajan Biography

Raghuram Rajan is an Indian economist and the former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, who is currently the Vice-Chairman of the Bank for International Settlements. He served as the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and his three year tenure is known for bringing the bleeding rupee back to strength and for battering down the inflation fangs to 6 per cent from double-digit levels. After a glorious career as an academician at the Booth School of Business, he was hired by the International Monetary Fund as its Chief Economist. Always a high-achiever, Rajan completed his schooling from some of the best educational institutions in the country and abroad. An alumnus of IIT-Delhi and IIM-A, Rajan's thesis 'Essays on Banking' earned him a Ph.D. in management from MIT Sloan School of Management. He is always known to be a pragmatist, which is reflected in his various papers especially the controversial piece of writing ‘Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?’. Though initially ridiculed, Raghuram was later commended for predicting the US economic crisis of 2008 beforehand. His straight forward and practical approach has been instrumental in battling the inflation which plagued the nation when he assumed the role of RBI Governor. A member of the Group of Thirty, Rajan is a crusader of the free market system. In his book ‘Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists’ he has suggested that capitalism serves as a handy tool to abate poverty and provides equal opportunities for all.