Neel Kashkari was designated as the Interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability on October 6, 2008

He will head the Office of Financial Stability, in charge of the $700 billion U.S. Government Troubled Assets Relief Program which will buy troubled financial assets from U.S. financial firms.

TIME magazine quotes

The government’s $700 billion bailout plan is in the hands of this man

Personal Life

Kashkari (35), born July 30, 1973, is an Indian-American, from Stow, Ohio, where he attended Stow–Munroe Falls schools before transferring to the Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio, from where he graduated in 1991.

Kashkari’s parents, Chaman and Sheila Kashkari, are from Kashmir, India.

• Father Chaman has a doctorate in engineering, and won a Presidential award for his work in getting water to African villages.
• Kashkari’s mother, Sheila, is a retired pathologist
  His sister Meera, specializes in infectious diseases.
• He and his wife Minal live in Silver Spring, Maryland, with their dog Winslow.

Prior to joining the Treasury Department, Mr. Kashkari was a Vice President at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in San Francisco.

Prior to his career in finance, Mr. Kashkari was a R&D Principal Investigator at TRW in Redondo Beach, California where he developed technology for NASA space science missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope.

[ Reference - US Treasury, TIME ]

Following up the research on India, Goldman Sachs and Co. economists Jim O’Neill and Tushar Poddar have come up with a report on 10 things the country needs to do to achieve a per capita GDP of at least $20,000 (Rs 8.58 lakh today) by 2050 (from less than $1,000 now).

Ten Things for India to Achieve Its 2050 Potential, is a grim reminder that India has fallen to the bottom of the four BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) in its growth scores, due largely to government inertia. The report states that India’s rice yields are a third those of China and half of Vietnam’s. While 60% of the country’s labor force is employed in agriculture, farming contributes less than 1% to overall growth. The report urges India to improve governance, raise educational achievement, and control inflation. It also advises reining in profligate expenditures, liberalizing its financial markets, increasing agricultural productivity, and improving infrastructure, the environment, and energy use.

Here is the excerpts from the report:

1. Improve governance.
2. Raise educational achievement. According to our basic indicators, a vast number of India’s young people receive no (or only the most basic) education. A major effort to boost basic education is needed.
3. At the other end of the spectrum, India should also have a more defined plan to raise the number and the quality of top universities.
4. Control inflation. We think a formal adoption of inflation targeting would be a very sensible move….
5. Introduce a credible fiscal policy. We also believe that India should introduce a more credible medium-term plan for fiscal policy. Targeting low and stable inflation is not easy if fiscal policy is poorly maintained.
6. Liberalize financial markets.
7. Increase trade with neighbors. In terms of international trade, India continues to be much less “open” than many of its other large emerging nation colleagues, especially China… We would recommend that India target a major increase in trade with China, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
8. Increase agricultural productivity.
9. Improve infrastructure.
10. Improve environmental quality. Achieving greater energy efficiencies and boosting the cleanliness of energy and water usage would increase the likelihood of a sustainable stronger growth path for India.

[Source: Goldman Sachs; Global Economics Paper No. 169 and Experts: LiveMint, Businessweek ]

The Board of Directors of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. announced the election of Lakshmi N. Mittal as an independent director of the firm effective June 28, 2008. Mr. Mittal will serve on the Audit, Compensation and Corporate Governance and Nominating Committees of the Board. With the addition of Mr. Mittal, the Goldman Sachs Board consists of 13 directors, of whom ten are independent directors.

“Lakshmi Mittal has reshaped a global industry and, in the process, has engineered new modes of production, identified unrealized value and sparked remarkable growth,” said Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.