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Raghuram Rajan’s New Book ‘I Do What I Do’ Marks End Of Former RBI Governor’s Year Of Silence

Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan to publish new book on his time at India’s central bank.



Raghuram Rajan, governor of the Reserve Bank of India (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg) 
Raghuram Rajan, governor of the Reserve Bank of India (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg) 

It was a balmy September afternoon when then Governor of the Reserve Bank of India Raghuram Rajan announced a surprise 50 basis point cut in the benchmark interest rate and was asked if he was playing an early Santa Claus to Indian industry that had been clamouring for a rate cut.

He said in response...

“I don’t know what you want to call me...Santa Claus... you want to call me hawk, I don’t know. I don’t go by this. My name is Raghuram Rajan and I do what I do.”

That went on to become Rajan’s most famous quote as RBI Governor, adding a James Bond-like appeal to the already super-star economist credited with having put out an early warning regarding the onset of a global financial crisis.

It’s now the title of his next book, whose arrival marks the end of a one-year silence period that the former RBI governer adhered to right after his controversial exit from the central bank.

Publisher Harper Collins India describes the book as Rajan’s “commentary and speeches that convey what it was like to be at the helm of the central bank in those turbulent but exciting times”.

Whether on dosanomics or on debt relief, Rajan explains economic concepts in a readily accessible way. Equally, he addresses key issues that are not in any banking manual but essential to growth: the need for tolerance and respect to assure India’s economic progress, for instance, or the connection between political freedom and prosperity.
Harper Collins Media Statement On Raghuram Rajan’s New Book

And while a collection of commentary and speeches might disappoint those waiting for a tell-all style memoir of his time as governor, maybe Rajan will in his introduction offer some more of the insight and isms that made him one of India’s most popular central bankers.

‘I Do What I Do’ offers a front-row view into the thinking of one of the world’s most respected economists, one whose commitment to India’s progress shines through in the essays and speeches here. It also brings home what every RBI Governor discovers for himself when he sits down at his desk on the 18th floor: the rupee stops here. Right here!
Harper Collins Media Statement On Raghuram Rajan’s New Book