Prime Minister Narendra Modi pitched for a greater representation of Indians in top leadership positions at IMF; even as its chief Christine Lagarde hoped an Indian will “one day” head the global body. “I hope one of these days. I can’t tell you when. One day of course,” she said in reply to a query on when an Indian could head the IMF. Indians having held senior positions at IMF are, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan Chief Economist, Arvind Subramanian, currently India’s Chief Economic Advisor served as an economist at the multilateral lending institution.

Traditionally, the position of IMF’s MD has been held by a European, there has been pressure in past few years from emerging countries from Asia and Latin America to change this trend. Lagarde “complimented the government on the focused way in which it has been working to revive the economy”. Modi “stressed the importance of having a clear direction and focus” and said reforms are not restricted to legislation alone, implementation and direction are equally important.

Modi said that, “his focus, while promoting growth, is to create jobs, have inclusive growth, and focus on development of backward regions in Eastern and North-Eastern India. This region is rich in natural and human resources and we need to capitalize on this. The priority is on all fronts agriculture, manufacturing and services”.

Lagarde commented on India’s fiscal consolidation as: “I was very impressed by the fact that state authorities, most of them at least, also abide by the fiscal principle and discipline.” “But I think it should anchored in the medium term in order to give macroeconomic stability framework to the country in order to continue to encourage investors and for India to remain bright spot of the global economy,” she said. “We had very good discussion about the tax issue because I was a finance minister myself. We discussed how devolution of Budget can work with states and how to keep fiscal consolidation on radar screen,” she said.

By Premji