Bureaucrat-turned-banker Duvvuri Subbarao demits office on September 5, 2013 after a five-year stint as the 22nd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Photo: PTI
Dr. Subbarao moved into RBI in September 2008 and went on to face a tumultuous period of global financial stress, falling economic growth, high inflation and rupee depreciation. Photo: AP
Dr. Subbarao will be remembered for the tough monetary stand that he took during the last one-and-half years when inflation was rising on one hand and economic growth stumbling on the other. Photo: AP
Under his leadership, the RBI raised rates 13 times between March 2010 and October 2011, testing the government’s patience. The RBI's tough stance brought down wholesale inflation from double digits in 2010-11 to around five per cent in 2013; core inflation has declined to around two per cent. Photo: AP
Dr. Subbarao's unrelenting focus earned the ire of those in the government with Finance Minister P. Chidambaram even remarking once that if the government has to walk the path of growth alone, it was prepared to do so. File Photo: Kamal Narang
Dr. Subbarao's critics say his policies resulted in the moderation of economic growth to a decade’s low of 5 per cent in the last fiscal. Defending his policy actions, he said that growth had moderated, but to attribute all of it to tight monetary policy would be inaccurate and misleading. File Photo: Mohammed Yousuf
The RBI Governor vented his feelings towards the end when he said the problem lay more with the government and domestic factors than with problems outside. Cartoon: Keshav
As wholesale inflation started inching downward this summer, the Governor was faced with the problem of a falling rupee. Rupee against the dollar has depreciated over 20 per cent in the last three months and is at present hovering over 68 to the dollar. Photo: V.V. Krishnan
The rupee's slide was triggered by the statement of US Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke that US may go in for quantitative easing later this year. “But we will go astray both in the diagnosis and remedy, if we do not acknowledge that the root cause of the problem is domestic structural factors,” Dr. Subbarao said in his last public lecture as Governor. Photo: AP
Dr. Subbarao will be succeeded by Raghuram G Rajan, Chief Economic Advisor to Finance Ministry and former economist of International Monetary Fund. Photo: PTI
Dr. Subbarao summed up his innings in his last speech. “May you live in interesting times. I can hardly complain on that count. I had come into the Reserve Bank five years ago as the 'Great Recession' was setting in, and I am finishing now as the ‘Great Exit’ is taking shape, with not a week of respite from the crisis over the five years." Photo: K. Murali Kumar