Sanjeev Sanyal

Sanjeev Sanyal is an Indian economist and author. Currently, he is the Principal Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India.[1][2] A Rhodes Scholar and Eisenhower Fellow[3][2] He was Deutsche Bank's Global Strategist and a Managing Director till 2015.[3][4] He is also the author of several books including The Indian Renaissance: India's Rise after a Thousand Years of Decline,[5] Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India's Geography, The Incredible History of India's Geography, The Ocean of Churn: How human history was shaped by the Indian Ocean and Life Over Two Beers.[6]

Sanjeev Sanyal
Principal Economic Advisor, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance
Assumed office
February 2017
Preceded byIla Patnaik
Personal details
Born (1970-08-27) 27 August 1970
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
NationalityIndian
Alma materShri Ram College of Commerce
St John's College, Oxford
Occupation
  • Economist
  • Writer

Early life and background

Sanjeev Sanyal comes from a family that played an important role in India's freedom struggle against British colonial rule. His great grandfather Nalinaksha Sanyal was the Chief Whip of the Congress Party in the provincial assembly of undivided Bengal and a vocal opponent of colonial policies during the Bengal Famine of 1943. His granduncle was Sachindra Nath Sanyal who was one of the founders of the revolutionary movement and a mentor to revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad.[7]

Sanjeev Sanyal was born in Kolkata and studied at St. Xavier's School and St. James' School in Kolkata. He attended Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University and St John's College, Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar representing India (1992–1995).[8]

Career

Sanjeev Sanyal is currently the Principal Economic Adviser to the Indian government.[9] He also serves as the co-chair of the Framework Working Group of the G20 and represents India on a number of international forums.[10]

Till he joined the government, Sanyal had worked in financial markets since the mid-nineties. He was Managing Director and Global Strategist at Deutsche Bank till 2015.[11][3][2]

Sanyal is well known for applying chaos theory and the Complex Adaptive Systems framework to economic and urban issues.[12] He is seen as a strong advocate of using a codified insolvency and bankruptcy processes to allow creative destruction in an evolving economy. He has argued that conventional economists are wrong to demand perpetual "global balance". His view is that all periods of economic growth are characterized by some form of symbiotic imbalance and that the focus should be on managing the distortions caused by the imbalance rather than forcing a return to some preconceived equilibrium. Therefore, his view is that the next round of global growth will only be sustained if the rest of the world can find a way to absorb waves of cheap capital emanating from China. This implies a return to global imbalances.[13] According to an analysis by Sanyal in 2013, the UN's widely used population forecasts were flawed. He claimed that population growth was likely to be much slower than the U.N.'s estimate.[14]

Sanjeev Sanyal is also an environmentalist and expert on the economics of cities.[15] He has been a strong advocate of including "walkability" and organic evolution in the way we think of cities.[16] He is the co-founder and Director of GIST - a think-tank that is a pioneer in the field of environmental accounting.[17] He has been closely involved with Aavishkaar MicroVenture Fund which won the UN's World Business Award for 2006.

Membership and associations

He has been member of the Steering Committee of Urban Age at LSE Cities and is also a Senior Fellow of the World Wildlife Fund. He has been an Adjunct Fellow of the Institute of Policy Studies at the National University of Singapore, a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (UK) and Senior Fellow of IDFC Institute (Mumbai).[18][10] In 2009, he joined the Board of Governors of AFPRO, one of India's largest organisations working on food security and has also advised the UK government, United Nations Environment Programme, and other international agencies.[19]

Till 2016, he was a member of the Future City Committee of the Singapore government that was tasked with creating a long-term vision for the city-state.[6]

He writes columns for the Hindustan Times,[20] Project Syndicate, The Times of India,[21] Live Mint,[22] Business Standard, and several other publications.[16][23]

Awards and recognition

Sanjeev Sanyal was named Young Global Leader for 2010 by the World Economic Forum in Davos, an honour given to select individuals below the age of 40 for outstanding contributions across disciplines including politics, academia, sports, business, and art. He is a Rhodes Scholar (1992–95) and was also awarded the Eisenhower Fellowship in 2007 for his work on urban systems.[24] In 2008, CNBC profiled him as a "Young Turk" in recognition to his contributions to Asia's financial markets.[25] The Singapore government honored him as a Young Leader 2014 at the World Cities Summit held in June 2014.[26]

In July 2014, Sanyal won the first International Indian Achiever's Award for his contributions to Literature at the inaugural gala event in Mumbai.[27] The award is given every year to Indians who have excelled in different fields on the international stage. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, London and of IDFC Institute Mumbai.[4]

Personal life

He is married to Smita Barooah, an Assamese who is a writer and a photographer. The couple live with their two children, Dhruv and Varun, in New Delhi, India. [28][29]

Books

  • The Indian Renaissance: India's Rise After A Thousand Years of Decline, World Scientific, 2008, 264 p.[30]
  • Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India's Geography, Penguin, 2013, 192 p.[31]
  • The Incredible History of India's Geography, Penguin, 2015, 264 p.[32]
  • The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History, Penguin, 2017, 324 p.[33]
  • Life over Two Beers and Other Stories, Penguin, 2018, 232 p.[34]
  • India in the Age of Ideas: Select Writings, 2006-2018, Westland, 2018, 318 p.[35]

References

  1. "Sanjeev Sanyal appointed principal economic adviser in Finance Ministry - Times of India".
  2. "How I made it: Sanjeev Sanyal". India Today.
  3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2 April 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2011.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. "Sanjeev Sanyal - New Cities Summit 2016".
  5. "Friedman tops non-fiction bestseller list". www.newstrackindia.com.
  6. "Sanjeev Sanyal". Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  7. "Shaheed from Varanasi". Archived from the original on 6 September 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2013.
  8. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 24 September 2016. Retrieved 11 September 2017.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. https://dea.gov.in/whos-who?field_whos_who_category_tid=All&title=Sanjeev&field_email_feedback_email=
  10. http://icrier.org/G20/2018/assets/images/concept-note.pdf
  11. Chakraborty, Shrim (25 February 2015). "Modi's first full year Budget".
  12. https://www.fortuneindia.com/people/a-contrarian-looks-at-world-affairs/100371
  13. "Global research" (PDF). etf.deutscheawm.com.
  14. Norris, Floyd. "Population Growth Forecast From the U.N. May Be Too High".
  15. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 12 March 2012. Retrieved 6 November 2011.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  16. "Sanjeev Sanyal" via Business Standard.
  17. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 7 October 2011. Retrieved 6 November 2011.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  18. Team, DNA Web (3 February 2017). "Sanjeev Sanyal appointed as Principal Economic Adviser: All you need to know about him". DNA India. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
  19. "Sanjeev Sanyal". IDFC Institute. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
  20. "This excerpt from a book demolishes Ashoka's reputation as pacifist". 5 August 2016.
  21. "Why India needs to no longer be an Ashokan republic, but a Chanakyan one".
  22. Sanyal, Sanjeev (15 June 2015). "Our history books need rewriting".
  23. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2 November 2011. Retrieved 6 November 2011.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  24. "Young Global Leaders". World Economic Forum.
  25. Sanjeev Sanyal Vinayak Lohani - IIT Alumni Association Singapore
  26. "Mr Sanjeev Sanyal - World Cities Summit". www.worldcitiessummit.com.sg.
  27. "Bollywood celebs at International Indian Achievers Awards". 30 July 2014.
  28. https://twitter.com/smitabarooah/status/983570840456450048?lang=en
  29. https://twitter.com/sanjeevsanyal/status/763587245072850945?lang=en
  30. Sanjeev, Sanyal (18 August 2008). Indian Renaissance, The: India's Rise After A Thousand Years of Decline. World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-4470-76-6.
  31. Sanjeev, Sanyal (15 November 2012). Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India's Geography. Penguin Random House India Private Limited. ISBN 9788184756715.
  32. Sanyal, Sanjeev; Rajendran, Sowmya (28 November 2017). The Incredible History of India's Geography. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-93-5118-932-9.
  33. Sanyal, Sanjeev (10 August 2016). The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-93-86057-61-7.
  34. Sanyal, Sanjeev (15 May 2018). Life over Two Beers and other stories. Penguin Random House India Private Limited. ISBN 978-93-5305-024-5.
  35. Sanyal, Sanjeev (2018). India in the Age of Ideas: Select Writings, 2006-2018. Westland. ISBN 978-93-87894-57-0.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.