Senior economist Dr Arvind Virmani has been appointed as a full-time member of the NITI Aayog.
Key points
- Dr Arvind Virmani is the founder-chairman of the non-profit public policy organisation Foundation for Economic Growth and Welfare.
- He was appointed as the Chief Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance from 2007 to 2009 during the UPA-1 government.
- He has also served at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Virmani was appointed as the Executive Director by the International Monetary Fund in 2009.
- His tenure at IMF went on till 2012, in which he represented India (as its Ambassador to IMF), Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan.
- NITI Aayog, which replaced the Planning commission in 2014, is government of India’s premier think-tank headed by the Prime Minister himself.
- Currently, NITI Ayog has three full-time members including Dr V K Saraswat, Professor Ramesh Chand, and Dr V K Paul.
