Government to name RBI Rajan's successor this week

 

 

Raghuram Rajan’s term as governor of the Reserve Bank of India expires September 4, 2016 and a replacement may be announced as early as this week. Who will Prime Minister Narendra Modi name as Rajan’s successor? Bloomberg News assembled the following list of eight possible candidates.

 

Subir Gokarn

Once one of the RBI’s youngest deputy governors in charge of monetary policy, Gokarn was also chief economist at S&P Global Ratings and is currently India’s envoy to the IMF
Age: 56
Education: Doctorate in Economics from Case Western Reserve University
Noteworthy: Nomura says he’d be inclined to balance between growth and inflation

 

Urjit Patel

Currently the RBI’s deputy governor in charge of monetary policy, Patel has worked with Boston Consulting Group and Reliance Industries 
Age: 52
Education: Doctorate in Economics from Yale and M. Phil from Oxford
Noteworthy: A key architect of India’s inflation target and rate-setting panel, Nomura sees Patel as a hawk

 

Arundhati Bhattacharya

The first woman chair of the 207-year-old State Bank of India, Bhattacharya would also be the first woman to lead the 81-year old Reserve Bank of India
Age: 60
Education: Holding a master’s degree in literature from Jadavpur University in West Bengal, Bhattacharya had dreamed of becoming a museologist
Noteworthy: She’s spearheading a clean up of bad loans at state-run banks, which Rajan has said is essential to ensure sustainable growth.

 

Arvind Subramanian

Currently the top economic adviser to Modi, Subramanian is on leave from his post of senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
Age: 57
Education: D.Phil, Oxford, with degrees in economics and management 
Noteworthy: An advocate of looser monetary policy, Subramanian has suggested looking beyond benchmark consumer-price inflation and proposed dipping into the RBI’s emergency funds to recapitalize state-run banks

 

Arvind Panagariya

He currently is vice chairman at a government policy research group Niti Aayog.

Education: Doctorate from Princeton and professor of economics and political economy at Columbia University
Noteworthy: Panagariya has advocated sharper interest-rate cuts and favors public spending

 

Kaushik Basu

Outgoing chief economist at the World Bank, Basu has also been top economic adviser to the Indian government
Age: 64
Education: Doctorate from the London School of Economics 
Noteworthy: "Economics is not a moral subject," he wrote in his recent book, An Economist in the Real World. In the past, Basu has proposed that governments only penalize bribe-takers to encourage bribe-givers to reveal corruption.

Ashok Lahiri

Chairman of one of India’s youngest commercial bank Bandhan Bank and a former adviser to the Indian government
Age: 65
Education: Doctorate from the Delhi School of Economics
Noteworthy: Lahiri’s hobbies include psephology, according to his Twitter bio. Optimistic of Modi’s "deep-rooted" reforms, Lahiri has highlighted the need for the government to cut its stakes in state-owned banks to 33 percent

K.V. Kamath

The first president of the so-called BRICS Bank, Kamath has worked at one of India’s top software companies and was CEO and MD of ICICI Bank. 
Age: 68
Education: He holds degrees in engineering and management
Noteworthy: He’s said India’s bad-debt problem is overblown as it doesn’t yet account for 10 percent of GDP.