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Raghuram RajanHe graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (won the Director's Gold Medal for best all-round achievement) in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, and completed the Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (gold medalist) in 1987. He received a PhD in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991 for his thesis titled "Essays on Banking."He joined the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago after graduation. His accolades include:Youngest-ever Economic Counselor and Director of Research (chief economist) at the International Monetary Fund (October 2003 to December 2006)Inaugural recipient of the Fischer Black Prize awarded by the American Finance Association for contributions to the theory and practice of finance by an economist under age 40 (2003).Awarded the 5th Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics for highly influential contributions in a remarkably broad range of areas in financial economics by Center for Financial Studies.What Rajan has best to his credit is prediction of the 2008 mortgage crisis way before it happened. In 2005, at a celebration honoring Alan Greenspan, who was about to retire as chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Rajan delivered a controversial paper that was critical of the financial sector. In that paper, "Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?," he argued that a "disaster might loom." Following the 2008 economic crisis, his views came to be seen as prescient. He was extensively interviewed on the global crisis for the Academy Award winning documentary film Inside Job.Since November 2008, Rajan has been actively involved in Indian economy, playing a variety of important roles, including the honorary economic adviser to the Planning Commission, Chief Economic Adviser to the Ministry of Finance and now RBI Governor, for a period of three years.He is a suave, unflappable economist who took office at a time when Indian economy is facing a big crisis. Keen to lower unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve, Mr. Rajan has stressed that he has no "magic wand" to solve India's multiple economic ills. The country has the world's third-largest current account deficit of about $90 billion, high inflation and an economy projected by private economists to grow at about 4 per cent this fiscal year, half the rate it was in 2008. But it is acknowledged that like his predecessor, he would likely try to assert his independence. This can be evidenced from the fact that before becoming Mr. Chidambaram's adviser, it was reported that Mr. Rajan was sharply critical of the government for failing to drive ahead with economic reforms.Amidst all the challenges that lay ahead of him, he continues to radiate a strong sentiment of hope.Have you ever seen a high profile person do this?

I flew to USA in August of 2016 and I have not gone back since. I’m 24 years old I have lived the first 22 in India and the last 675 days in the US.In 2015, I finished my Bachelor of Engineering and I used to work as a freelance photographer shooting concerts and weddings around India. I miss that. But here, I am still in touch with photography but I’m exploring the art deeply and when you don’t do it for money, you learn more.When I came to the US, it was the first time I was living away from my family. I never made a meal by myself, I never cleaned my apartment, or utensils, basically I never did any kind of household chores because back in India, it was always taken care of.I learned to be completely independent living in the US.My parents paid for my tuition at the university for my masters degree but I decided to take care of all the living expenses by myself. Oh boy, the things you learn when you do that. I learned how to manage my expenses to save money for food, pay the bills and you’re in your early 20s so, miscellaneous expenses as well.My first job at the University was at a place called Mac’s Place. It was a fast food diner. This is how it looks.Image source: Google ImagesThis job paid me $8.5 per hour and I could work for 20 hours every week. That got me paid $170 a week to live in a city like Dallas. Trust me, not an easy thing to do. Well, since its a diner, my dinner was taken care of.I learnt how to use the grill, flip burgers, bake pizzas, make french fries and chicken tenders, etc, basically, I learnt how to run a kitchen. I worked in the kitchen for 3 months and then for the next 5, I was running the cash register.This is me.In May of 2017, something amazing happened. I interviewed for an on-campus job which I did get, and I started working at the business school library as a student assistant.This job paid me $9 per hour and the work was not very hectic. From working rough at a diner, now I was helping business students in a library along with others working at the same place.This job gave me some of my best friends I could have ever asked for. I made friends from a very diverse set of backgrounds and I think it changed me as a person.This is a picture of our entire team working at the library. Each one of them, a gem!This one is when I went for a road trip to Arkansas with my colleagues from the library.This one is when we were working for a charity named “The Source of Hope” where we made food for over 200 homeless people. Kitchen skills came in handy.This one is when we went to an elementary school in Dallas through Junior Achievements of USA as teachers.This job gave me all the life experiences I could have ever asked for, and some people I love dearly.When you leave your country for the first time and do not go back for over a year, you miss it. You miss everyone who were close to you, you miss the food, the people, the city, the place. You always want to go back.I booked my tickets to go back to Mumbai and I was all set to fly on the 10th of December 2017. I had all the plans made and I had notified all my friends to meet up.On 8th of Dec, my department offered me a teaching assistantship and it required me to stay. I had 2 days to make a decision.Most of my friends asked me to go back to India and meet everyone since its been long, but I thought about why I had come to the US in the first place, and that was not to miss a good opportunity.I cancelled my tickets, I stayed, I worked my ass off the entire winter break, I created a data center in campus, and I taught 10 labs sessions every week for 5 months and it was the most rewarding thing I ever did. And a $15,000 scholarship, helped.I learnt so much! It was a knowledge shower that was dropping on me and I wonder what would have happened if I had decided to go back for small pleasures in life. Some decisions are hard, this was one and I think I made the right decision.In May of 2018, I graduated.That’s one happy picture, right?I got a job before I graduated. Thanks to all the learning that came with the assistantship.Now, I am looking forward to move to San Francisco to start my career in a field I love. I waited, worked and sacrificed things for it, and it made me happy in the end.Coming back to the original question, I would like to say this.I miss my family.I miss my friends.I miss BOMBAY!I miss Kerala.I miss INDIA.I miss the street food.I miss the crowded trains of Mumbai.I miss that 5 rupee cutting chai.I miss the monsoon in India.I feel like going back all the time for a visit.But do I regret moving to the USA? It’s a big NO. :)

This man is Pol Pot, and don’t let the funny name get you.Born in 1925 into a relatively affluent family, he moved to Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh when he was nine years old. In 1949, he went to Paris on a scholarship and became involved with the communists there.Four years later, he returned to Cambodia, which was fighting to gain independence from France. That was granted in 1954.He joined the Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party (KPRP) after independence, and began to help plot a revolution. Escaping a 1963 crackdown, he launched a national uprising in 1968, starting a bloody civil war killing half a million people.The Khmer Rouge emerged victorious in 1975, and if the civil war wasn’t bad enough, it got worse.Pot planned to turn Cambodia into a simple, agrarian, and socialist society.He forced the urban population, such as teachers, doctors, and other professionals, into the countryside, onto collective farms, and executed anyone who complained or broke rules, and not by a gun, but by a pickaxe.There were more than 150 detention centers for any dissidents. S-21, the most notorious one, had 7 survivors out of 20,000. Others were taken to killing fields, executed, and buried in mass graves. If you go to Cambodia, you can see exhibitions of the victim’s skulls.Pot had almost complete control over people’s lives. He outlawed religon, most reading, money, anything private, and strictly governed sexual relations, vocabulary, and clothing.The Rouge’s reform was so extreme they even renamed the country to Democratic Kampuchea and ordered rice fields to be realigned to match the checkerboard pattern on the coat of arms.Out of a counry of not even ten million, it is estimated up to three million people were brutally murdered, worked to death, or starved in just three years.In 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia, capturing Phnom Penh in a few weeks. The Khmer Rouge, however, fought the Vietnamese until a treaty was signed in 1991.Six years later, this brutal man was captured by a splinter group of his party and placed under house arrest, where he died in his sleep.Pot’s legacy continues to rock Cambodia today, which is struggling to recover from the destruction the Khmer Rouge inflicted.