Prof. Kaushik Basu on his new job

Prof. Basu joined the Indian government recently as its Chief Economic Adviser. At BBC, he tells us what it has been like:

The first week was harrowing.

My in-tray reached for the ceiling till someone pointed out that on my right was an out-tray.

Questions concerning the economy came at rapid fire from parliament and from policy-makers.

I was asked, for example, if allowing futures trading in food created inflationary pressure on the spot market price of food.

This is the kind of question on which I would love to spend some months thinking and reading and then write a paper. Here I had 24 hours to respond.

For all the bewilderment of the first week, there was one pleasant surprise.

I did not expect the level of professionalism and commitment to work that I encountered in my ministry.

It is entirely possible that this is a recent phenomenon and special to Delhi, but the level of individual industry that I have seen in my first weeks is entirely on a par with or even higher than the best private sector firms.

Thanks to Krish for the Twitter-alert.