The economist as saviour

.....It is perhaps not an accident that Dr. Singh has chosen to surround himself with economic advisors of very different intellectual persuasions. His longstanding policy aide, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, can be dubbed a neo-liberal, a traditional neo-classical economist. The chairman of Dr. Singh’s council of economic advisors, Chakravarti Rangarajan, is in fact a traditional monetarist, and proud to be so. On the other hand, the more recently inducted policy wonk Kaushik Basu, chief economic advisor to the Government of India, is more of a post-Keynesian. What this diverse intellectual upbringing of India’s key economic policymakers has meant is that Indian policy has not been orthodox, but flexible. Skidelsky also dubbed Keynes a “Practical Visionary” — a description that aptly describes Manmohan Singh as well. As a “practical visionary”, Dr. Singh listens to the advice he likes and rejects what he does not........

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