“Taking my bike out and riding the bike path along Lake Shore Drive, that’s one of the great experiences in my life. And I hope to do it as long as I can. It’s great to be back,” Mr Rajan said in an interview with the media team of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Lake Shore Drive is an expressway running along the shoreline of Lake Michigan through Chicago, Illinois.

“This (Booth School of Business) has been my home for 25 years. It’s a great city. I have great colleagues. And it’s a wonderful school.

“It’s different every time you come back. If it wasn’t different, it wouldn’t be doing its job,” Mr Rajan said.

Mr Rajan was governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to September 2016. His tenure was marked by both bouquets and brickbats but saw severe criticism from some political quarters towards the end, including personal attacks.

He was accused of refusing to lower rates to boost growth, though Mr Rajan often cited data to the contrary.

Previously, he served as the chief economist and director of research at the International Monetary Fund (from 2003 to 2006).

He is currently Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, which he joined in 1991.

Asked what he is looking forward to most after returning to academic life, the former RBI Governor noted that one of the difficulties of a job in the “real world” is that one does not really get time to shut oneself off in a room and think.

“Now in academia,…if you are careful, you can spend four days in a room, sit looking at a piece of paper and struggling with a thought that refuses to come out.

“At the end of those four days, sometimes, you say, ‘Oh my God, how did I miss this?’ and it dawns on you. And that’s as close to bliss as you can get,” Mr Rajan said.

Talking about focus of his research, he said, “Research never really leaves you… While I was at the Reserve Bank, I published some papers, but you don’t get time to really reflect.”

Referring to the global financial crisis, Mr Rajan pointed out that the crisis essentially gave us research topics for the next 30 years.

“If you look at what happened, there are about 15 to 20 different stories now emerging,” he observed.

He also argued that more liquidity means more leverage, which in turn means more financial fragility.
 

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एक अंग्रेजी अखबार की रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक जब पटेल को पता लगा कि हॉल के फर्स्ट फ्लॉर के एंट्रेस गेट पर मीडिया वाले उनका इंतजार कर रहे हैं तो वे हॉल के पीछे के रास्ते से निकल गए। जब उन्हें लगा कि पत्रकार उनके पीछे दौड़ रहे हैं तो वे भी दौड़ने लगे।

रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक वे एक समय में दो-दो सीढ़ियां उतरने लगे और मीडियावालों के पहुंचने से पहले ही अपनी कार में बैठकर वहां से निकल गए। रिपोर्ट्स के मुताबिक उर्जित पटेल नोटबंदी को लेकर मीडिया के सवालों का सामना नहीं करना चाहते थे।
 
हाल ही में उर्जित पटेल को संसद की लोक लेखा समिति ने नोटबंदी से जुड़े 10 सवाल भेजे थे। सवालों में पूछा गया कि कितने नोट बंद किए गए और पुरानी करेंसी में से कितना वापस जमा किया जा चुका है, पिछले दो महीनों से आरबीआई के रेगुलेशंस में बार-बार बदलाव क्‍यों हुए, किस कानून और आरबीआई को मिली शक्तियों के तहत लोगों पर अपनी ही नकदी निकालने पर सीमा तय की गई। 
 
वरिष्‍ठ कांग्रेस नेता केवी थॉमस की अगुवाई वाली समिति ने पटेल से पूछा है कि अगर ऐसा कोई कानून नहीं है तो उन पर ”शक्तियों का दुरुपयोग करने के लिए” मुकदमा क्‍यों न चले और उन्‍हें हटाया क्‍यों न जाए।
 
गौरतलब है कि पीएम मोदी ने 8 नवंबर को नोटबंदी का ऐलान कर दिया था। नोटबंदी के बाद उर्जित पटेल का कई जगहों पर विरोध किया गया था। वहीं ये भी सवाल उठे थे कि नोटबंदी मोदी सरकार ने की या फिर आरबीआई ने। आरबीआई मोदी सरकार का नाम ले रही है और मोदी सरकार आरबीआई का नाम ले रही है।

Courtesy: National Dastak

The post मीडिया वालों को देख दो-दो सीढ़ियां कूदकर भागे RBI गवर्नर उर्जित पटेल appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
मोदी सरकार के नोटबंदी के फैसले पर रिजर्व बैंक के पूर्व गवर्नर विमल जालान ने टाइमिंग और उसके लागू करने के तरीके पर सवाल उठाए हैं। विमल जालान अटल बिहारी वाजपेयी सरकार के दौरान 1997 से 2003 के बीच गवर्नर रहे। 
 
मंगलवार को विमल ने इंडियन एक्सप्रेस से बात करते हुए कहा कि नोटबंदी के लिए सरकार के पास अच्छा कारण होना चाहिए था। विमल ने कहा,‘जब आप किसी भी लीगल टेंडर को बंद करते हैं तो उसके पीछे कोई सही कारण होना चाहिए। जैसे युद्ध या फिर सुरक्षा का खतरा। लोगों के बीच यह संदेश जाना जरूरी है कि नोटबंदी से क्या मिलेगा और उसे क्यों किया जा रहा है। सरकार को लोगों को यह जरूर बताना चाहिए कि यह इस वक्त पर ही क्यों किया जा रहा है।’
 
साथ ही जालान ने नोटबंदी के प्लान को सीक्रेट रखने पर भी सवाल खङे किए। उन्होंने कहा, ‘प्लान को सीक्रेट रखने का कोई मतलब नहीं था। उनके मुताबिक आपातकाल की स्थिती में ऐसा किया जा सकता था। लेकिन अभी इसे सर्जिकल स्ट्राइक की तरह छिपाकर करने की जरूरत ही नहीं थी। साफ होना चाहिए था कि एक हफ्ते, दो हफ्ते या तीन हफ्ते में ऐसा किया जाएगा।’जालान ने यह भी कहा कि वह मानते हैं कि कालेधन को देश की वित्तीय प्रणाली में शामिल करना चाहिए। लेकिन उन्होंने कहा सबके पास ही काला धन नहीं है। जालान के मुताबिक, नोटबंदी के प्लान को इस तरीके से बनाया जाना चाहिए था जिससे कालाधन ना रखने वाले कम से कम प्रभावित हों।

Courtesy: National Dastak

The post नोटबंदी पर पूर्व गवर्नर विमल जालान ने उठाए सवाल appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Namo-Nazi/ 

Fascism is an ideology with typical characteristics and fanatic follower’s .Its chief characteristic is to make every organ of the State subservient to the Leader and to totally regulate the life of every citizen.

 
Hitler and Mussolini were its incarnations in the last century .Their inhuman acts and the end to which they brought their nations are well known facts of history.
 
Though the 21st century is very different from 1930s, and fascism in its 1930's form may not flourish, a fascist State in its modified form is still possible. India is under its serious threat.
 
For example, Narendra Modi is now the only leader of the BJP and its government .All other leaders of the party who devoted their whole life to the party have been reduced to non-entities. L.K.Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and the rest are nursing their humiliating wounds in silence. Rajnath Singh, a former president of the BJP has been reduced to nothingness as India's Home Minister. Nitin Gadkari, another ex-president of the BJP counts for nothing in the current dispensation. Sushma Swaraj, once an aspirant for the post of prime minister, is doing, at best, a house keeping job in the Ministry of External Affairs while it is Modi that performs as the de facto Minister of External Affairs for India.
 
Like a hyena feeding on the kill of bigger animals, Arun Jaitley is feeding off on Modi's kill. Like an archetypical fascist leader, Modi has surrounded himself by non-entities like Smriti Irani to project himself as a giant among the pigmies.
 
Like all fascists , he is systematically engaged in destroying the autonomy of all constitutional bodies and autonomous institutions .When two names were recommended by the Collegium for appointment as judges of the Supreme Court, he notified the name of one (Mr Nariman ) and withheld Mr Gopal Subramanian’s name. Such selective action was unprecedented. Mr Subramaniam withdrew his name out of disgust because –in typical fascist style — a campaign for his character assassination was launched.
 
Through this, one independent judge was prevented from reaching the apex court. Later, the Constitution was amended to give the power to appoint judges of higher courts to a National Judicial Appointment Commission with the Union Law Minister as one of its members .It was so formed as to make sure that nobody could be appointed as a High Court or Supreme Court judge who did not find favour with the government .
 
The sinister design is implicit; fill the higher judiciary with pliant and servile judges. Now that the National Judicial Appointment Commission was declared unconstitutional by the apex court, Modi is still trying to have the last word on appointments through unconstitutional provisions in the memorandum of procedure, which are being resisted by the judiciary leading to a confrontation with the Executive. Other political parties, too, are sympathetic to his move because they, too, have skeletons in their cupboards and want an amenable and manageable judiciary.
 
Universities and free students' organisations have been under a two pronged attack .The motive is to foist persons loyal to the Sangh's  ideology ready to toe their line on the educational institutions  and the other is to suppress freedom of thought of students and academia, on the campus.
 
A student organisation loyal to Ambedkar's ideology was banned in MIT, Madras, students at Hyderabad Central University were suppressed and victimised and almost a war was declared on JNU. A typically fascist tactic is employed to suppress students’s organisations and their activities. A conflict is engineered on the campus by employing the services of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (AVBP).
 
The technique is simple, the ABVP, a student’s wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), lodges a complaint with the authorities who then use their administrative power to suppress other students' organizations using police force, and their goons, if necessary. These fascist practices have been in evidence almost everywhere where there has been trouble on the campus (es).
 
Fascists perceive every independent person and institution as a thorn in their flesh. The RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan was a thorn which hurt Jaitley's ego more than his flesh. He is intellectually far superior to Jaitley, the lawyer and Modi, the Pracharak, whose small egoes were bruised by his intellectual superiority.  
 
The government had the power to remove him and they would have been within their right to sack him or to let him complete his term and part gracefully, but they chose to set Subramaniam Swamy to heap insults on him through the media to satisfy their meanness. Rajan has now declared that he would be returning to the academics in the US after completing his term.
 
 Fascists create an enemy to attack, viscerally, to divert people's attention from their continued and daily exploitation, suppression and misery and to, insidiously, justify their inhuman acts. Hitler projected German citizens of Jewish origin as the enemies of the fatherland (motherland, Bharatmata, here) and targeted and destroyed them. Modi has chosen the minorities, especially the Muslims, for this purpose.
 
While he himself keeps mum, his Ministers and members of parliament (MPS) act as the shameful firing squads, brazenly public in their minority bashing. Muslims are potrayed as disloyal Indians without any basis. They are projected as a threat to Hindus, who constitute 80% of
India's population, which is ridiculous.
 
This anti-Muslim tirade in different forms continues to be pursued with venom, rancour and a sinister design .The unfounded fear of a rising Muslim population, ordering Muslims to go to Pakistan at the drop of a hat, exhorting Hindu women to produce at least four children each, declaration of dates by which India would not have a single Muslim or Christian and other anti-minority acts are being used to keep the enemy image of the Muslims alive to pursue their fascist agenda.
 
The tell tale evidence of fascism knocking at our door is there for all to see and can be ignored only at the cost of our democracy and a free society; at our collective peril.

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