Noted free market economist Arvind Panagariya will be Vice Chairman of newly constituted NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog. The new body has come into effect from January 1 in place of 64 years old Planning Commission.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed Vice Chairman and two full time members on Monday. These members included another noted economist Bibek Debroy and former Defence Secretary (R&D) V K Saraswat. A statement from the Prime Minister office said that Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu and Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh Road Minister Nitin Gadkari, Social Justice ^ Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot and HRD Minister Smriti Irani will be special invitees.

Who is new Vice Chairman?

Born on September 30, 1952, Panagariya is an Indian-American Economist. According to his bio data posted on the web site of Columbia University, his is a Professor of Economics & Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy at Columbia University and a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. In the past, he has been the Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank and a Professor of Economics and Co-director, Center for International Economics, University of Maryland at College Park. He has also worked for the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and UNCTAD in various capacities. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Economics from Princeton University.

He has written and edited 10 books His latest book, India: The Emerging Giant, was published in March 2008 by the Oxford University Press, New York and has been described as the ‘definitive book on the Indian economy’ by Fareed Zakaria and ‘a tour de horizon and a tour de force’ by Jagdish Bhagwati. His previous books include The Economics of Preferential Trade Agreements (with Jagdish Bhagwati) and Lectures on International Trade (with J. Bhagwati and T.N. Srinivasan).

New Body

The three layered body will be headed by the Prime Minister. It will serve as ‘Think Tank’ of the Government- a directional and policy dynamo. It will provide Governments at the central and state levels with relevant strategic and technical advice across the spectrum of key elements of policy. This includes matters of national and international import on the economic front, dissemination of best practices from within the country as well as from other nations, the infusion of new policy ideas and specific issue-based support.

Now, one more key appointment has to be made in relation to Chief Executive Officer.

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