the rupee in 1966, bank nationalisation in 1969, the balance of payments crisis of the early 1990s and the follow on path - breaking economic reforms that marked a paradigm shift in our economic policy. the reserve bank is proud of the role it has played in addressing these developments, responding to them with sensitivity, professionalism and integrity. 5. the high esteem in which the reserve bank is held today owes much to the intellectual leadership and vision of successive governors. the speeches in this compendium are a testimony to that. the speeches also mark a journey through time and provide a glimpse into the ideas, issues and concerns that engaged the reserve bank over the years. 6. the wide - ranging themes covered by the speeches – monetary policy, external sector management, issues in the financial sector and the real economy, economic development and poverty reduction, regulation of banks and financial markets and challenges of managing economic policy in a globalizing environment – are a reflection of the broad mandate of the reserve bank and its enduring concern for the larger public good. 7. for a public policy institution like the reserve bank, there is no final destination ; the goal posts keep moving with new challenges and tasks replacing current ones. the learning too never stops. from each development and crisis, lessons are drawn and applied to policy and institutional reform. 8. this compendium of speeches is a reminder to us in the reserve bank of the need to be constantly pushing the envelope to remain useful and relevant. in this pursuit, the bank needs to be at the frontiers of domain knowledge while also remaining sensitive to the core concerns of an emerging market economy, one which is still home to hundreds of millions of poor people. 9. we hope this book will provide an appreciation of the reserve bank ’ s eventful history and its contribution to nation building. 10. in conclusion, our very warm thanks to the prime minister and all the former governors for making this book release a flagship event in the reserve bank ’ s platinum jubilee celebrations.

to exchange rate and sterilized operations to offset the effect of unusual cross border capital flows. impact of qfas is difficult to quantify. first, the impact of qfas is merged with the impact of other operations and thereby is reflected in the consolidated picture in the balance sheet of the central bank. it has not been possible to separate in the balance sheets the impact emerging exclusively from the qfas from other operations. secondly, market clearing rates cannot be accurately predicted in an administered interest rate regime and therefore, it would be difficult to estimate the element of subsidy / tax involved in such operations. thirdly, the qfas are performed on an ongoing basis covering innumerable transactions and, therefore, their measurement is virtually impossible. fourthly, the impact of certain qfas like credit ceiling and exchange related measures are not certain. on a very general plane it can be argued that sterilised intervention by the central bank to contain the liquidity impact of capital flows often involve a trade - off between low return assets and high return assets as far as the central bank is concerned. earning from the deployment of foreign exchange is understandably lower than the interest loss on account of open market sale of government securities essentially due to interest rate differentials. communications policies issues in transparency and disclosure constitute an important aspect of reserve management, within the broader framework of monetary, fiscal and financial polices. thus, the policy as well as all relevant information are articulated through a variety of means from time to time, the most significant being the monetary and credit policy statements by governor, rbi. the speeches of governor and deputy governors are important sources of policy analysis, actions and intentions. the annual reports of rbi provide authentic version of rbi ’ s perspective as approved by its board. the report on currency and finance provides research output from the professionals in rbi. the periodical publications, press releases and discussion papers are also important sources of information. the rbi has been providing, on a regular basis, appropriate data directly relating to foreign exchange market operations. the rbi publishes daily data on exchange rates, forward premium, foreign exchange turnover etc. in the weekly statistical supplement ( wss ) of the rbi bulletin with a time lag of one week, the movement in foreign exchange reserves of the rbi on a weekly basis are also published. the rbi publishes data on nominal effective exchange rate ( neer ) and real effective exchange rate ( reer ), rbi's purchases and sales in the foreign exchange market along with outstanding