India’s a story of many transitions, says former RBI Governor Duvvuri Subbarao

From a closed economy to an open economy, from agriculture to the hub of digital innovations and services, from glaring gender inequality to gender parity, India’s is a story of many transitions, said former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Duvvuri Subbarao.

From a closed economy to an open economy, from agriculture to the hub of digital innovations and services, from glaring gender inequality to gender parity, India’s is a story of many transitions, said former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Duvvuri Subbarao.

He was delivering a lecture in the latest edition of India Forward, a talk series organised by the Cochin Chamber of Commerce and Industry here on (June 29) Saturday.

He said India had transformed itself from a highly poverty-ridden country to a country that is sure-footed in its fight against absolute poverty. “Girl children are no longer examples of poverty and malnutrition. They embody great ambitions. Women in today’s India want to be astronauts, civil servants, economists, and journalists,” he added.

Mr. Subbarao pointed to the great success of the midday meal programme where hundreds of children received a meal a day in school. This helped improve enrolment in schools. The dropout rates came down, he said.

He recalled that he was the RBI Governor at a time when the world economy went through great turbulence. In a lighter vein, he said the troubles that started with his tenure as RBI Governor ended when he stepped down.

He also released his latest book Just a Mercenary? Notes from My Life and Career on the occasion.

M. Ramachandran, former Secretary in the Ministry of Urban Affairs, asked Mr. Subbarao what inspired him to choose the book title. “The question,” he said, “is why I was doing it. Was my career meant to earn money like a mercenary, who fought for those who paid him? Or was it out of a sense of duty, or was it a sense of giving back to society, which had given me so much?”