The choice of Harvard University professor Gita Gopinath as Kerala Chief Minister’s economic adviser has raised eyebrows, particularly in the Left circles, as she is seen as a person committed to the neoliberal economic agenda. She had done her bachelors in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University, and masters from the Delhi School of Economics before moving to the U.S. to do her Ph.D at Harvard University. She was assistant professor at the University of Chicago for three years. Prof. Gopinath, who has her familial roots in Kerala, has distinguished herself by becoming the third woman and the first Indian after Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen to become tenured professor of the economics department at Harvard University. In the past, she had gone public with her support for the deregulation of petroleum product pricing and implementation of the Land Reforms Bill that the CPI(M) had opposed strongly in Parliament and outside.

Source: The Hindu July 25, 2016 19:51 UTC