Hello to Sustainable Development and Goodbye to Fixed Fiscal and Monetary Policy Rules

Dr A Vasudevan (1940- ) retired as Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) (1996-2000) in charge of four departments—economic policy and analysis, statistics, information technology and monetary policy. After retirement, he worked as Honorary Adviser, RBI up to end-November 2003. Subsequently, he was UGC Visiting Professor at Gokhale Institute of Political Science and Politics, Pune teaching Financial Markets for Post graduate students for a quarter, and a columnist for the Hindu Business Line. Between December 2006 and December 2009, he was the IMF’s Monetary Operations Adviser to the Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). From November 2010 to end-June 2012, he worked as Special Advisor to the Governor, CBN in the areas of Monetary Policy and Operations. Presently, he is Honorary Fellow at a non-profit multi-disciplinary Centre for International, Strategic and Development Studies, Mumbai and occasional contributor to India’s financial dailies. He has had a rich international experience—Advisor to the Executive Director for India at the International Monetary Fund, Washington DC between 1984 and 1989; Member of the Indian Delegations to the IMF/World Bank and G-24 meetings between 1984-89 and again between 1993-2000; represented India at the UNDP Conference on financing of Sustainable Development at Santiago, Chile; Central Bank Deputy at the G-20 Deputies’ Meetings in 1999 and 2000; and Member of two Task Forces concerning the international standards and codes appointed by the erstwhile Financial Stability Forum, Bank for International Settlements at Basle. He served on several committees, the important among them being: Expert Group on Saving and Capital Formation in India, Government of India as Member 1996; the Working Group on Money Supply, RBI 1998 as Vice-chairman; and the Committee on Technology Upgradation in Banking Sector, RBI, 1999 as Chairman. He has written several books, the recent ones being: Macroeconomic Policies for emerging and developing economies (with Partha Ray) 2017, Sage Publications, Delhi India; Monetary Governance (2012, Academic Foundation, New Delhi); and Central Banking for Emerging Market Economies (Enlarged and Revised 2 nd edition, 2014, Academic Foundation, New Delhi). He also taught M A Students at the University of Bombay between 1966-69 on the Theory of Money, Theory of Economic Development and Central Banking. He was UGC Visiting Professor at Gokhale Institute of Politics & Economics, Pune for a Semester in 2004 for a course on Financial Markets in India. He has regularly contributed fortnightly columns for the Business Line between 2004 and 2006. He has numerous articles on African economic issues in Business Day, a financial daily from Nigeria. He has travelled extensively in Western Africa, in particular, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. He has also published two novels in English in 2010 and 2015. These were brought out by Cinnamon Teal, Goa. He is fond of Carnatic classical music and has a good ear for Hindusthani classical music of Banaras gharana.