PM Modi Needs to Give Credit to Dr Susmit Kumar For RBI Efforts for Inclusion of Rupee in IMF SDR Basket of Currencies

Details: Created: 21 July 2023

Dr. Susmit Kumar, Ph.D.

Prime Minister Modi should give credit to me, i.e., Dr Susmit Kumar for RBI efforts for inclusion of Rupee in IMF SDR (Special Drawing Rights) basket of currencies – Please read below. From 1999 to (September) 2016, US Dollar, Euro, Japanese Yen and British Pound used to be part of SDR when Chinese Yuan was added into it on September 30, 2016.

From this inclusion, India benefits from Rupee’s internationalization, more widely used in international monetary markets, thus lowering Indian financial institutions’ borrowing costs and boosting the overseas expansion of Indian companies and financial institutions. In addition, it further improves India’s economic and political position in the world and reduces reliance on US Dollars.

https://www.thestatesman.com/business/rbi-panel-suggests-inclusion-of-rupee-in-imfs-special-drawing-rights-basket-1503197294.html

If US-based economists would have been at all 3 top positions, i.e., Chief Economic Advisor, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman and RBI Governor, they would have had never ever given any economic policy for the one above. Their ultimate allegiance is with US, US economy, US Economic policy "Reaganomics" and US Dollar. Hence they would have never given any economic policy which would hurt or go against any of those four, i.e. they would have never given any economic policy for Indian rupee to challenge US dollar as reserve currency (FOREX) or to be used in global trade otherwise their career would be finished in US as they would not get any research fundings and any position in financial institutions, including IMF and World Bank which are controlled by US and Wall Street investors. Hence, they would just teach in India how to compete with other exporting countries (China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Philippines, etc.) to get a share in US consumer market. I am not blaming these US economists - Had I been a professor of economics or management in US, I would have been doing the same thing.

It is mainly due to my one and a half years work on global economic, which finally led to my 2018 economic book “India is a Country, not a Company - How Anglo-US 'Imported' Economists Misled and Mismanaged the Indian Economy”, that now since 2017-18, none of the top 3 economic positions - Chief Economic Advisor, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman and RBI Governor - is held by US-based Indian economists. When in March 2018 I gave a talk at Vivekananda International Foundation, New Delhi thinktank, its Director Dr Arvind Gupta, retired IFS, introduced me by saying - "Sometimes an outsider can analyze data better than experts in the field." He said so because everybody knew that I have a PhD in engineering and I worked in software sector in US.

On May 20, 2017 Dr Kumar sent following 37 page paper, having 18 tables and 16 Charts to analyze global economy, to about 2,000 people which included officers at Prime Minister Office, 200+ officers at Niti Aayog, Several Ministers, IAS officials, Professors at IITs, IIMs and premier Indian universities. A week later, the then Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Prof Arvind Panagariya sent his resignation to PM Modi who accepted his resignation only after two months because Mr. Modi had himself asked Dr. Panagariya to be the founding head of Niti Aayog, i.e. latter had not even applied for this post at all. This led to a domino effect and now all 3 top economist posts are held by economists whose ultimate allegiance is with India and with no other country.

https://www.susmitkumar.net/index.php/47-uncategorised/189-niti-aayog-why-does-it-need-new-direction-and-a-new-leadership

In 2012 Congress-led UPA government had given Padma Bhushan Award to Dr Arvind Panagariya. Don’t you people think that PM Modi needs to award similar award to Dr Kumar?

One cannot blame PM Modi, a chaiwala PM for having US-trained Indian-origin economists till 2017-18. But certainly, one should blame economist Dr Manmohan Singh who was at the helm of affairs for 15 years - 5 years as Finance Minister (1991-96) and 10 years as PM (2004-14). Especially after 2011-13 economic crisis in India when India was one of the "Fragile Five" countries (South Africa, Turkey, India, Indonesia and Brazil), he should have known what was wrong with Indian economy and immediately brought the changes and informed PM Modi about it when latter become PM in 2014. Had crude oil price persisted above $100 a barrel for another couple of years, i.e. till 2015, India would have to beg for a huge loan before IMF and Indian economy would have gone down for next 15 to 20 years due to the IMF's bitter pills (I'aM Finished) - we know what happened with countries like "East Asian Miracle Countries" Indonesia and Thailand, Argentina, and PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain – they have not had their GDPs recovered to their pre-Euro Crisis level)- they are now gone from top-tier of global economy due to "I'aM Finished" of IMF loan conditions.

It was mainly because of 2011-2013 FOREX Crisis in India and near collapse of Rupee (from 44 [to USD] in April 2011 to 62 [to USD] in September 2013), leading to India’s addition in “Fragile Five” countries that I decided to spent one and a half years to force the Modi administration make drastic changes in its economic policy and in the end I was successful.