From Free Work Pitch To Co-Authoring: The Story Of Raghuram Rajan's Mentee

In 2012, Rohit Lamba was pursuing PhD in Economics at Princeton University in the US, when he wrote a letter to his "mentor" and former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India Raghuram Rajan to work for him for free and contribute to the country. Mr Rajan was working as India's Chief Economic Advisor at that time. 

Mr Rajan recollected the incident and wrote on LinkedIn, "I met Dr Rohit Lamba over a decade ago, when I was India's Chief Economic Advisor, and he wrote to me as a Ph.D. student from Princeton, wanting to work for free in the Finance Ministry just to make a contribution to the nation. Since then, we stayed in touch and really started working together during the pandemic."

He added that they together wrote op-eds for newspapers and now, they have co-authored a book 'Breaking The Mould'. 

"Rohit is a great theoretical economist, who also has a strong practical sense. He is passionate about India and its development, as hopefully comes out in the pages of the book. He speaks here about the Indian success stories that we write about," he added while sharing a video of Mr Lamba.

Sharing the post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Lamba said, "Not everyday you get a shoutout from one of your favorite economists, who is also a mentor and co-author. So I'll take it :)"

Not everyday you get a shoutout from one of your favorite economists, who is also a mentor and co-author. So I'll take it :) https://t.co/B6COz8Caad pic.twitter.com/xmH6lRGZtS

— Rohit Lamba (@rohlamba) November 28, 2023

Mr Rajan spoke about his upcoming book and added, "India is at a critical juncture. the decisions we make now will determine its economic future, either for the good or the bad. Our book outlines India's options -- it can either blindly follow outdated paths that other countries took, or it can chart a uniquely Indian way."

Meanwhile, the former Reserve Bank of India Governor said that India's economy is showing signs of steady growth but needs to expand at a pace of over 8% to create enough jobs for the world's most populous nation. "We should be going at 8%-8.5% given the needs of the population and the need for jobs," Mr Rajan said via video link at an event in Beijing on Friday, as per a report in Bloomberg. Economic growth at 6%-6.5% is strong compared with other countries, "but relative to our need for jobs I think it's still somewhat slow because we have a lot of young people who need to be employed."

Mr Rajan said the nation needs to train its workforce to compete with other efficient manufacturing nations, including China and Vietnam. "India is trying to move up the value chain, and you're seeing some signs of that happening," he said, citing the output of iPhone parts. But he sees "a long distance to go, to actually manufacturing full cell phones" in India.