I Was Open To Staying A Little While Longer

He does not mince words when he speaks.

RAGHURAM RAJAN Governor, Reserve Bank of India

And when he does, he pours his heart out. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan, who has been at the receiving end for going slow on slashing the policy rate, has challenged his critics to show how inflation is "very low". He has asked them to prove where he and the RBI have been "behind the curve" in focusing on containing price rise.

Mr Rajan, whose three-year term as the RBI chief comes to end on September 4, also notes that there is "a lot of frustration" about the pace of economic recovery. But he attributes it to the two successive droughts, weak global economy and external shocks, like Brexit. Given these constraints, "performance of the Indian economy has been quite creditable" and prospects of good monsoon as well as structural reforms and macroeconomic stability will accelerate the growth, going forward, he adds.

The outgoing 53-year-old governor stresses that he has refrained from "thumping on the table" to put a number on GDP growth. The former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and on-leave professor of finance at Chicago University - who had predicted the global financial crisis of 2008 - points out that people sometimes get "overly fixated with a particular growth number", though figures like 7.6 per cent and 8 per cent are within the same range. Mr Rajan,who has been pilloried by his critics for keeping interest rates high and stifling growth, speaks on a wide range of issues in an engaging interview with Joyeeta Dey.

What are the major challenges for the domestic economy amid a continuing global slowdown?