India appoints economist Rajiv Kumar to government think-tank NITI Aayog

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India named economist Rajiv Kumar as the vice-chairman of the government’s main policy think-tank, the state broadcaster said on Saturday.

He replaces Arvind Panagariya, who is standing down after two-and-a-half years in the job and returning to New York in September.

Kumar is a senior fellow at public policy think-tank Centre for Policy and Research (CPR). Prior to that he served as the secretary-general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), an industry lobby.

The Indian-born, U.S.-educated economist Panagariya was named by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January 2015 as the first manager of the Policy Commission, which replaced an earlier body responsible for drawing up Soviet-style five-year economic plans. He is returning to Columbia University.

Modi sees the body as an enabler of his brand of “cooperative federalism”, coordinating reforms with India’s 29 states and drafting a new long-term development strategy.