New Delhi: Shashi Tharoor, a leading Indian parliamentarian, says he was deceived by a fake news item that claimed firebrand economist Raghuram Rajan was appointed the governor of the Bank of England.

Tharoor on May 6 took to Twitter to clarify that he was “taken by the fake news” this time.

A Facebook post by Satprakash Sharma on April 28, congratulating Rajan, has garnered close to 8,000 shares by now. Tharoor, a former diplomat and a renowned author, too, found himself believing the news as he tweeted out a report by a news portal.

Tharoor’s first tweet said he found Rajan’s appointment “remarkable.”

Shashi Tharoor
✔
@ShashiTharoor
Remarkable: India’s RaghuramRajan has been appointed Governor of the Bank of England! https://www.siasat.com/news/unrecognized-own-country-dr-raghuram-rajan-appointed-governor-bank-england-1351207/. With an Indian (NasserHusain) having captained the England cricket team already, all that’s left to complete a reverse colonization is for an Indian to be Prime Minister.

Rajan, meanwhile, clarified to Alt News that this is fake news and that he is “happy with my current job and have not searched for, nor got, any other.”

The news item in siasat.com said: “Dr Raghuram Rajan has been appointed as the Governor of Bank of England. He replaced Mark Carney. He has become the highest paid banker in the world with a salary of 874,000 pounds a year.”

Messages congratulating Rajan flooded Facebook with many users sharing the ‘news’ of Dr. Rajan’s appointment. This ‘news’ has also been shared on Twitter. Majority of the posts on both Twitter and Facebook are by individual users with almost identical text, which suggests that this rumor is circulating on WhatsApp.

When Alt News contacted Rajan regarding the social media rumors, he responded saying, “Sorry, but this is fake news. I am happy with my current job and have not searched for, nor got, any other.”urs. In his response, he stated, “Sorry, but this is fake news. I am happy with my current job and have not searched for, nor got, any other.”

Rajan had moved back to Chicago after his stint at the Reserve Bank of India to teach at the Booth School of Business.

As Reserve Bank of India governor, Rajan’s policies and views drew ire from senior members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Since he’d held on to his US green card, he wasn’t deemed “mentally fully Indian.”

Rajan was born on February 3, 1963, in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, into a Tamil Brahmin family. He is the third of four children of R Govindarajan, an Indian Police Service officer who topped his 1953 batch.

Presently he is serving as the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He was the 23rd governor of the Reserve Bank of India between September 2013 and September 2016.

Between 2003 and 2006, Rajan was the Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund. In 2015, during his tenure at the Indian Reserve Bank he also became Vice-Chairman of the Bank for International Settlements.

In 2003, Rajan received the inaugural Fischer Black Prize, given every two years by the American Finance Association to the financial economist younger than 40 who has made the most significant contribution to the theory and practice of finance. His book, Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, won the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award in 2010. In 2016, he was named by Time (magazine) in its list of the ‘100 Most Influential People in the World.’

He was a half-term student of Campion School, Bhopal, until 1974.

From 1974 to 1981 Rajan attended Delhi Public School, R K Puram. In 1981 he enrolled at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi for a bachelor’s degree in Electrical engineering. He graduated in 1985 and was awarded the Director’s Gold Medal as the best all-round student. In 1987, he earned a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.

After graduation, he joined Tata Administrative Services as a management trainee but left after a few months to join the doctoral program in management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. In 1991, he received a PhD for his thesis titled Essays on Banking under the supervision of Stewart Myers. Rajan’s research interests were in banking, corporate finance, and economic development, especially the role finance plays in it.

In 2008, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed Rajan as an honorary economic adviser. That same year, a high-level committee on financial reforms, headed by Rajan, submitted its final report to the Planning Commission. He chaired the Indian Government’s Committee on Financial Sector Reforms (2007-2008).