With 7 per cent economic growth, India is not creating enough jobs as reflected by the number of applicants for vacant posts in some states, Reserve Bank's former governor Raghuram Rajan said and suggested the government needs to focus on promoting labour-intensive industries to generate employment. Rajan further said some Indians, especially those at upper level, are comfortable and have high incomes, but consumption growth from the lower half of the country has still not recovered to pre-pandemic level.
Indian economy, dubbed the fastest growing major economy in the world, is faced with the single most important pressure point of job creation, says former RBI Governor Raghuram G Ranjan as he makes a strong case for improvement of human capital through skill development. Talking about the book 'Breaking the mould: Reimagining India's economic future', written jointly by him and Rohit Lamba, assistant professor of economics at Pennsylvania State University, Rajan said one of the greatest strength of India is its human capital of 1.4 billion and the question is "how do you make it strong?" The nation needs to create jobs at every level going along the path of development, said Rajan, presently Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth, USA.
Former Reserve Bank of India governor Dr Raghuram Rajan -- the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago -- walked with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan, on Wednesday, December 14, 2022.
'I have a problem with the term 'outsider'. 'Doctor ka beta doctor banta hain, par aap baki doctors ko outsider nahi na bulate.' 'I always wanted to be an actor, yaar.' 'While I was in the bank for eight years, I was training to be an actor in Delhi.'
Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has asked why SEBI has not yet got to the bottom of ownership of the four Mauritius-based funds who are said to have parked 90 per cent of their $6.9 billion in Adani group stocks, saying does the market regulator need help of investigating agencies for this? The funds -- Elara India Opportunities Fund, Cresta Fund, Albula Investment Fund and APMS Investment Fund -- have been under cloud for last couple of years after allegations that they may be shell companies. They came into focus once again in January when a US short seller alleged that Adani Group used offshore shell companies to inflate stock price.
Sounding a note of caution, former Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan has said that India is "dangerously close" to the Hindu rate of growth in view of subdued private sector investment, high interest rates and slowing global growth. Rajan said that sequential slowdown in the quarterly growth, as revealed by the latest estimate of national income released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) last month, was worrying. Hindu rate of growth is a term describing low Indian economic growth rates from the 1950s to the 1980s, which averaged around 4 per cent.
Nowadays, our politics is habituated to sitting on a high pedestal, hobnobbing with world leaders, generating impressions of a superpower and returning to earth for the purpose of winning elections. In contrast, the yatra never left earth, observes Shyam G Menon.
The speed at which he led the central bank in different areas -- ranging from internal reorganisation to inflation fighting, stabilising the currency, taking on rogue corporations, cleaning up bank balance sheets, and opening the sector -- makes one believe that Rajan knew he had only three years to do his job. A fascinating excerpt from Tamal Bandyopadhyay's MUST-READ Roller Coaster: An Affair with Banking.
Rajan said the government focussed more on fulfilling its political and social agenda rather than paying attention to the economic growth.
To a question related to RBI's policy rate, Rajan said no amount of interest rate cut is going to help if credit growth is weak.
Though Nobel Prize nominations have been a secret for 50 years, speculation abounds over the contenders for this year's prize in economics.
Retail investors will soon have to obtain a net worth certificate from a chartered accountant and submit it to their broker, and their trading limits will be decided accordingly.
The answer to the problems of high inflation and slowing growth, and low farm incomes, would lie in addressing the basic reforms that India is still to attempt -- like labour laws, says T N Ninan.
The RBI working group's proposal to allow corporate houses to set up banks is a "bombshell" and at this juncture, it is more important to stick to the tried and tested limits on involvement of business houses in the banking sector, according to an article jointly written by former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and ex-Deputy Governor Viral Acharya. They also said that the proposal is "best left on the shelf".
Rediff.com spoke to Raghuram Rajan about his book, what enthuses him about the Indian economy, and what are the concerns he has with India's chaotic progress . . .
R Vaidyanathan, a professor of finance at Indian Institute of Management-Bengaluru, tells Vicky Nanjappa why the time is just not right to reveal details of the temple's treasures.
Rajan says, this is a time where countries should be focusing on getting the macro stability in order
Parvez Ahmed, associate professor of finance at the Coggin College of Business, was appointed to the Jacksonville, Florida, council after an election marked by a smear campaign by an anti-Islamic group, Act for America. The group objected to his record for his previous community activism and his political views and claimed Muslims should not be allowed to hold public office.
Given their stability, the rupee and the renminbi (Chinese currency) -- when made convertible -- could well emerge as substitute currencies which countries will hold their reserves, stated Raghuram Rajan, Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister and Professor of Finance at the Chicago Graduate School of Business, on Wednesday.
Lot of money is now being withdrawn from the Swiss banks and transferred to Singapore.
"With all kinds of stocks flying around, investing can't be a part-time job," says Bruce Greenwald, professor of finance at the Columbia Business School.
The appointment of Rajan, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and now a professor of finance at University of Chicago, comes at a time when India, like most of the world economies, is grappling with the impact of the global credit crisis.
Rajan said that while there were talks about Jan Dhan, it was difficult to target transfers to people through this tool. Jan Dhan, he said, does not really work as advertised.
Hedge funds operating in the US and other parts of the world provide a good business process outsourcing opportunity for India, given the business model of the funds shifting their assets from one market to another, experts have said.
'I have very little faith in economists who tell me that demonetisation will reduce growth.' 'The greater effect of demonetisation is if it creates changes in the financial services system and gets people to shift from cash.' 'The economy is not a trained monkey that will jump around if you lower rates.'
A top Finance Ministry source, however, said no discussion has taken place in the government so far on whether to extend Rajan's tenure or not.
When asked if he sees himself back in Chicago, he said, "Yeah, Chicago has been kind to me over my history".
T T Ram Mohan, a professor of finance and accounting at the IIM-A, recommends Peter F Drucker's book -- Management: Tasks And Practice.
India-born Raghuram Rajan, Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, has been awarded the newly instituted Fischer Black Prize by a premier academic organisation on financial economics.
Only time will tell whether an individual like Rajan would be able to influence the manner in which the Fund looks at the rest of the world, especially developing countries.\n\n
An exclusive interview with Dr Raghuram Rajan, who has just been appointed Chief Economist at the IMF.
Raghuram G Rajan, professor of finance at Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, has won the Fischer Black prize instituted by the American Finance Association.
Panagariya, who heads the government's main economic advisory body NITI Aayog, is also India's Group of 20 summit negotiator
'People who come from IMF-World Bank backgrounds have no dynamism at all,' Subramanian Swamy said.
He may make a comeback as co-chairman at India's second largest software exporter.
'There are lots of low hanging fruits and often no real impediment to plucking them.'
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances