Narendra Modi-led NDA government on Friday appointed Krishnamurthy Subramanian as chief economic adviser for a period of 3 years.

A PhD from Chicago-Booth and a top-ranking IIT-IIM alumnus, Krishnamurthy Subramanian is serving as Associate Professor of Finance (with tenure) and Executive Director for the Centre for Analytical Finance at the Indian School of Business, a top business school in India.

The government had invited applications for the post of chief economic adviser to replace Arvind Subramanian who resigned from the post 20 June this year and returned to the US.

The newly appointed CEA has his task cut out as his appointment comes barely 50 days before the government has to present the Economic Survey through which it would like to present its economic outlook ahead of the 2019 polls in the Absence of a full budget. The finance ministry has already entered the "quarantine period" for preparing the budget in which entry of outsiders has been curtailed for outsiders.

This was the second time in the last few years that the post of chief economic advisor was vacant for a long time. After Raghuram rajan moves from the CEA's office to take over the post of RBI governor the post of CEA was lying vacant for almost a year from September 2013 till October 2014.

Like Raghuram rajan Subramanian has a Chicago-Booth connect as he holds a PhD from There. Coincidentally His MBA and PhD in Financial Economics was under the guidance of Professor Luigi Zingales and Professor Raghuram Rajan.

Interestingly while his predecessor Arvind Subramanium recently attacked the November 8 2016 note ban exercise as "draconian" Subramanian has been a strong supporter of the move. Through several writings and publications he has defended the move by the government which even Raghuram Rajan who had held the CEA's office had virtually called "a speed breaker for growth."

As part of his corporate policy work, Subramanian serves on the boards of Bandhan Bank, the first bank to be licensed after independence in eastern India, the National Institute of Bank Management, and the RBI Academy.

In previous academic roles, Subramanian served on the finance faculty at Goizueta Business School at Emory University in the United States. He obtained his MBA and PhD in Financial Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business under the advice of Professor Luigi Zingales and Professor Raghuram Rajan.

Edited by Chitranjan Kumar