Montek Singh Ahluwalia..............Person who Commands Respect

Montek Singh Ahluwalia (born November 24, 1943) is a prominent Indian economic policy-maker. He was a Member of the Indian Planning Commission in the NDA Government from 1998. He became the first Director of the Independent Evaluation Office, International Monetary Fund (IMF) on July 9, 2001. On June 16, 2004, he was appointed as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission by the UPA and was reappointed to the post by the Government on June 5, 2009 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Academics

Montek Singh Ahluwalia graduated with a B.A. (Hons) degree from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, University of Delhi. He received the BA degree as a Rhodes scholar from the University of Oxford, which became, in the Oxbridge tradition, an MA degree with passage of time. He also received the BPhil degree of Oxford University which the University later reclassified as an MPhil. He has also received an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law from Oxford.

Career

After Oxford, Ahluwalia joined the World Bank during the tenures of Hollis Chenery and Robert MacNamara. He was said to have become the youngest "Division Chief" at age 28 in the World Bank's bureaucracy. He returned after several years to become a lateral entrant into the Indian Administrative Service. Prior to taking up his position at the IMF, Ahluwalia was a Member of the Planning Commission in New Delhi as well as a Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. He had previously served as Finance Secretary at Ministry of Finance, Secretary at Department of Economic Affairs, Commerce Secretary, Special Secretary to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Finance. In 2007 he became a member of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty His published work includes papers in professional journals and contributions to books.