new delhi former chief economist of the imf raghuram rajan was on monday appointed the prime ministers economic adviser as india too begins to feel the effect of the global financial crisisrajan a close associate of planning commission deputy chairman montek singh ahluwalia has been tapped for his knowledge of the global financial markets recently the government had called on rajan to head a committee on finance sector reforms in india the committee issued a draft report asking the rbi to concentrate its energies on fighting inflation within months it became clear that rbi would have to be juggling many balls in the air controlling the slide of the rupee and inducing economic growth requiring very different tools than to fight inflationa pmo statement said rajan would be an honorary economic adviser to singh and would hold the rank of a secretary rajan lives in chicago and will now be a regular commuter to new delhi rajan is currently a finance professor at the university of chicagos graduate school of businesssince the pm is already assisted by an economic advisory council headed by suresh tendulkar the question has been asked about the necessity of another adviser but rajans expertise is in the finance sector which is in the eye of the current storm clearly the pm who is said to be personally monitoring the financial crisis and its effect on india needs another set of brains for a more specialized adviceduring his time in imf rajan tried to get that fusty organization to get used to the idea of a rising china and a rising india in recent weeks when the global clamour rose for imf to take a more proactive stance on the crisis the organisation rajan has argued fell short of the task in an interview recently he said what i think were missing in these moments is a strong international independent voice which stands for the world economy and fights for the world economy it is a loss that the fund is not performing this rolehis biggest grouse against the fund is something most people have known for long in the same interview rajan criticized the fund for its double standards in its treatment of rich and poor countries he pointed to a 2007 imf statement in which it advised india against banning short sales of stocks but when the wall street crash broke the us did exactly that with no complaint from imfrajan hasnt been very complimentary about the us response to the crisis either rajan was quoted as telling journalists recently the response to this crisis in the united states has been innovative but almost consistently behind the curve the authorities were focused on inflation when the problem was liquidity they focused on liquidity when the problem was solvency and theyre focusing on solvency when the problem is a global financial panic there is room for somebody outside to press the authoritiesfunnily in india the government was accused of exactly the same thing