Key facts about RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan

Raghuram Rajan, newly appointed governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), arrives for a news conference at the bank's headquarters in Mumbai September 4, 2013. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui·Reuters

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Position: Governor of the Reserve Bank of India

Incumbent: Raghuram Rajan

Date of Birth: Feb 3, 1963

Term: Three years starting Sept 4 2013

Key facts:

-A prominent economist who has spent a significant part of his career in the United States, Rajan was appointed the 23rd governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and is the second-youngest to hold the post.

-Rajan, who took office days after the rupee tumbled to a record low amid the country's worst economic crisis since the early 1990s, had worked since late 2012 as chief economic adviser to the finance ministry in New Delhi.

-Rajan is the Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, a post he has held since 2007.

-Rajan was the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund between 2003 and 2006.

-During a 2005 conference at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Rajan now-famously presented a paper outlining looming dangers in the financial system, risks that were borne out in the global financial crisis of 2008.

-Rajan is the author of Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, which was awarded the Financial Times-Goldman Sachs prize for best business book of 2010.

-Rajan chaired a government of India committee on financial sector reforms in 2008, recommending several monetary policy reforms including inflation targeting and hiving off the RBI's government debt management function.

(Reporting by Suvashree Dey Choudhury; Editing by Ron Askew)

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