Newsletter
Seasoned bureaucrat and India’s revenue secretary Sanjay Malhotra is set to take charge as the new RBI Governor, succeeding Shaktikanta Das.
Das, a legend himself, will be credited with navigating India’s economy quite well through the COVID-19 crisis. But change is long due as the future presents new challenges.
What’s at stake: the RBI has a tough balancing act ahead. India’s growth is faltering, which is unacceptable. RBI’s interest rates need to come down so businesses can easily borrow money to expand. But bringing interest rates down is hard when inflation is as high as 6% (actually probably a lot more than that).
To that, add Trump and the western rhetoric of America first, tariffs, strong dollar etc, which adds more nuance.
Background: a 1990 batch IAS officer from the Rajasthan cadre, Malhotra holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from IIT Kanpur and a master’s from Princeton University.
Zoom out: Malhotra is viewed by the markets as a pro-business pick, and is expected to advocate for low taxation and potentially cutting red tape to let business flourish.
Besides, the government’s expectation is also pretty clear— keep the economy buzzing while leveraging trickle-down economics to take care of everything else.
