Since the outbreak of the global financial crisis, governments and policy makers have intervened in markets massively, and in multiple forms – injecting liquidity, recapitalizing banks, providing fiscal stimuli, and buying out doubtful bonds to plug holes in the balance sheets of financial firms. These initiatives were taken under the overall policy rationale of putting out a fire. On 31st July, Gateway House hosted the former Whole Time Member of SEBI, Prashant Saran, in discussion with K. N. Vaidyanathan, Gateway House’s Senior Geoeconomics Fellow and the Chief Risk Officer of Mahindra & Mahindra, to discuss “Is Growth, Greed? Is Big, Strong?.”
Various policy instruments used in regulating India’s complex financial system, and also the virtue of India’s growth agenda and its expectations were discussed.
Prashant Saran recently demitted office as a Whole Time Member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), a position he held since 2009. Prior to that, Saran had a 29-year-inning at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), where he was Chief General Manager and Head – Department of Banking Operations and Development from 2003 to 2009. At RBI and at SEBI, Saran has participated in and led a number of committees and working groups relating to policy formulation and implementation on a wide variety of subjects and issues. Saran is a post graduate in Physics and a certified member of the Indian Institute of Bankers.
K.N. Vaidyanathan is the Chief Risk Officer of Mahindra & Mahindra. He earlier served as the Executive Director of SEBI. An MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Vaidyanathan is a Member of the Finance Board at IIM, Ahmedabad and is Gateway House’s Senior (Adjunct) Fellow for Geo-economics.
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