The Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Shaktikanta Das, has been felicitated with the ‘Governor of the Year’ award at the Central Banking Awards, 2023, in London, UK. Central Banking is an international economic research journal based in London. Prior to Das, it was Raghuram Rajan who was awarded with the title back in 2015. It was stated at the event that Das cemented critical reforms, oversaw world-leading payment innovation, and steered India through difficult times with a steady hand and well-crafted turn of phrase.
Das was also called a ‘voice of calm amid the fear’ during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Shaktikanta Das’s tenure since 2018 has been marked by a series of grave challenges, starting with the collapse of a major non-banking firm, moving through the first and second waves of the coronavirus, and then, in 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its inflationary impact”, the organizers of the award said.
The organizers also touched upon the September, 2018 collapse of the Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS), which had led to a liquidity crunch in the Indian banking system. They also added that apart from the same, a handful of other firms collapsed in the months later, including the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank, which had lent a significant amount to an infrastructure finance firm that went into the doldrums.
