FM, her team deserve Nobel prize for steering Indian economy in difficult times: former PHDCCI chairman

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday got an unexpected compliment for the handling of the economy during difficult times, with former PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Rajeev Talwar suggesting that she and her team deserve to be nominated for the Nobel prize.

The former head of the industry chamber PHDCCI stated that like former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, India's woman finance minister also deserves to be nominated for the Nobel prize.

He made this suggestion at the Post-Budget interactive session of the industry chamber PHDCCI with the finance minister. Among others, the session was attended by industry leaders and past and present office bearers of the chamber.

"We feel that with your achievements in the past, whether it is GST collections rising, faceless, or the corporate tax which you lowered in 2019. You earned the sobriquet of being not only the first woman finance minister but possibly the best finance minister which the country had."

"And if one can dare to say and dream if Mr Ben Bernanke could get a Nobel Prize for something which happened in 2008. We feel that India being the fastest growing economy at the moment,​ ​we don't see any reason why you and your team should not be nominated for the same Nobel Prize," the former CEO of DLF Ltd said.

Talwar's remarks however did not evoke any response from the finance minister.

Last year, Bernanke won the Nobel prize in economic sciences along with two other US-based economists Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig for their research into the fallout from bank failures.