Economist Rajiv Kumar had been appointed as the new vice-chairman of the NITI Aayog, a government spokesman said on Saturday. Kumar will replace Arvind Panagariya, who resigned earlier this week.
Currently, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and director at Pahle India Foundation, a non-profit research organisation that specialises in policy-oriented research and analysis, Kumar was also the secretary-general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) from 2010 to 2012. He also served as the director and chief executive of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (Icrier) from 2006-2010.
Kumar holds a DPhil in economics from Oxford and a PhD from Lucknow University.
Besides Kumar, Dr Vinod Paul, a paediatrician at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), has been appointed a member of the NITI Aayog.