Reeling from bad economic news and the plunge in the rupee, India took heart last week from the appointment of a new central bank governor.
Raghuram Rajan, who correctly predicted the financial crisis of the late 2000s, is being hailed as a daring James Bond riding to the rescue of the economy as he takes the helm at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Economic Times, India’s leading business daily, ran a headline “The man who predicted world’s future sets out to correct India’s present” with a picture of Mr Rajan and the British spy’s trademark Beretta pistol made out of Indian rupees.
Economic Times was not alone; it seems global media attention has fallen on this 50-year-old former IMF chief economist and University of Chicago professor.