Raghuram Rajan is an Indian economist born on 3 February 1963. He is a financial analyst, the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished service Professor Of Finance At the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He was Chief Economist and director of research at the International Monetary Fund between 2003 and 2006. For 3 years since 2013 to 2016 he was the 23rd Governer of Reserve Bank of India. In 2015 during his journey continuing as the Director of the Reserve Bank of India he became the Vice-Chairman of the Bank For International Settlements.

In 1991, he received a PhD for his thesis titled Essays on Banking under the supervision of Stewart Myers, consisting of three essays on the nature of the relationship between a firm or a country, and its creditor banks. The nature of financial systems had witnessed widespread changes in the 1980s, with markets getting deregulated, information becoming more widely available and easier to process, and competition having increased. The established orthodoxy claimed that deregulation must necessarily increase competition, which would translate into greater efficiency. In his thesis, Rajan argued that this might not necessarily be the case. The first essay focused on the choice available to firms between arm's length credit and relationship-based credit. The second focused on the Glass-Steagall Act, and the conflict of interest involved when a commercial lending bank enters into investment banking. The final essay examined why indexation of a country's debt, despite offering potential advantages, seldom featured in debt reduction plans.

In 2003 Raghuram Rajan received the Fischer Black Prize, given simultaneously for 2 years by American Finance Association to the financial economist younger than 40 years who has made the most significant contribution to the theory and practice of finance. He has also written some books on finance and one of his book named Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, won the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book Of the year award in 2010. In 2016, he was named by Time in its list of the ?100 most Influential People in the World?.

Alok Sagar is Raghuram Rajan?s teacher and has been working for the tribal people in Betul and Hoshangabad districts of Madhya Pradesh for the past 32 years. Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan was once the student of ex-IIT Delhi professor Alok Sagar, who left his prestigious IIT job in 1982 to serve the tribal people of Madhya Pradesh. While teaching at IIT Delhi, Alok had groomed numerous students, including Raghuram Rajan, the ex-RBI governor, reports Speaking Tree. After resigning from his work, Alok started working for tribals in the Betul and Hoshangabad districts of Madhya Pradesh. For the past 26 years, he has been living in Kochamu, a remote village with 750 tribals, lacking both electricity and roads, and with just a primary school. Alok continues to maintain a low profile. During Betul?s recent district elections, local authorities grew suspicious and asked him to leave. Alok revealed his long list of qualifications, which the district administration, to their surprise, verified to be true, reports

Raghuram Rajan has written extensively on banking, corporate finance, international finance, growth and development, and organizational structures. He is a regular contributor to Project Syndicate. He has collaborated with Douglas Diamond to produce much-cited work on banks, and their interlinkages with macroeconomic phenomena. He has worked with Luigi Zingales on the effect of institutions on economic growth, their research showing that development of free financial markets is fundamental to economic modernization. Rajan and Zingales built on their work to publish Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists in 2003. The book argued that entrenched incumbents in closed financial markets stifle competition and reforms, thereby inhibiting economic growth. Rajan's 2010 book Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy examined the fundamental stresses in the American and the global economy that led to the financial crisis of 2007?2008. He argued that widening income inequality in the US, trade imbalances in the global economy, and the clash between arm's length financial systems, were responsible for bringing about the crisis.