India’s new chief economic adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran has a strong finance background with his expertise to come in handy in managing the risks that the domestic economy faces as the world economy recovers from the ravages of the pandemic.

The Modi government appointed Nageswaran as CEA a few days ahead of the presentation of the Union budget and the Economic Survey.

Nageswaran’s career has straddled across academia and the hurly-burly world of portfolio management. He has a doctoral degree in finance from the MIT, where he worked on the empirical behaviour of exchange rates.

He also had an extensive career in banking at UBS and Credit Suisse in Switzerland and in Singapore. He moved to Bank Julius Baer in Singapore as the head of research for Asia in 2006 and was later appointed as its chief investment officer.

A stint at the Modi government’s Economic Advisory Council between 2019 and 2021 indicates an awareness how policy-making takes place in the corridors of North Block.

A PGDIM from IIM Ahmedabad, Nagaswaran was a part-time member in the advisory council during this period. The CEA to the finance minister had been vacant since early December after previous CEA Krishnamurthy Subramanian returned to academia at the end of his three year-stint.

In his latest newspaper column, Nageswaran warned of the upheavels in the oil market brought about by the rapid shift to green energy. “Globally, this oil-price risk is not being taken seriously because it is barely understood. So too in India. In the coming years, our public policy must become more innovative and flexible in managing that risk.”