Rajiv Kumar

Rajiv Kumar (born 6 July 1951) is an Indian economist who had served as the second vice-chairman of the NITI Aayog. He also served as the chancellor of Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune. His earlier stint in government was initially with the Ministry of Industry and subsequently in the Ministry of Finance, as economic advisor during the reform years of 1991-1994. He has wide experience of having worked in government, academia, industry associations, as well as in international financial institutions. He also served as an independent director on the central boards of the Reserve Bank of India and the State Bank of India.

Kumar is the writer of several books on India's economy and national security. He is an economic columnist for major Indian publications and is a speaker on the Indian political economy.

Early life and education He studied at Modern School, Delhi; St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University; and Canning College, Lucknow University, from where he received his Ph.D in 1978. He later attended New College, Oxford University, earning his D.Phil in Economics in 1982.

Career Rajiv Kumar (centre) with Additional Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, P. K. Misra, IAS (right) and a Japanese vice-minister incharge of policy coordination in Cabinet Office, Mamoru Maekawa (left) at a meet in New Delhi in March 2018.

Kumar was appointed senior research program officer, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) in Delhi in 1982.

He was a professor in Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) from 1987 to 1989.

He was then appointed as the Senior Consultant, Bureau of Costs and Prices at the Ministry of Industry, Government of India from 1989 to 1991. He served as the Economic Advisor in the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, from 1992 to 1995.

In 1995, he joined the Asian Development Bank in Manila, Philippines as a Principal Economist, where he served until 2005.

He was the Secretary General at the FICCI from 2010 to 2012.

Honours Kumar was conferred the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star of Japan on 29 April 2023 as a part of the 2023 Spring Conferment of Decorations. He was conferred the order in recognition of his contributions to strengthening the economic relations between Japan and India.