Dr Shamika Ravi, a renowned economist, is a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Governance Studies Program at the Brookings Institution based in Washington D.C.. She served as a member of India’s Economic Advisory Council, India from 2017 to 2019. As an economic expert, Ravi writes journals in many famous and major newspapers. Her research work has been published and mentioned by many prominent international newspapers including BBC, The Guardian, The Financial Times and most national and local dailies and magazines in India.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Shamika Ravi was born on 2nd January in Patna, Bihar. She studied in Patna till class 10 and then moved to Delhi to pursue higher education in 1991. She completed her secondary schooling in 1993 from Delhi Public School (DPS), R. K. Puram, New Delhi. Later, she attained a Bachelor’s degree in Economics in 1996 from Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi, followed by a Master’s degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics in 1998. Thereafter, she moved to the US in 1999 to pursue a PhD in Economics from the New York University, which she completed in 2005 and then returned to India.[1]Shamika Ravi LinkedIn
Family & Caste
She is married to Mudit Kapoor, and associate professor at the Indian Statistical
The couple has two sons, Kabir and Shaan.
Career
After attaining a PhD in Economics, Shamika Ravi worked as a permanent Economics professor for the next 10 years at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, from 2005 to 2015 and then continued working as a visiting professor for the institute for the next few years, giving lectures in in Game Theory and Microfinance. In 2015, she joined the Brookings Institution Indian Centre, a think tank base in Washington D.C., as a Senior fellow for Governance Studies and Director of its Research Department. Here is a video of Shamika Ravi, delivering a speech on the use of technology to strengthen democracy at a Brookings India Development Seminar held in 2017.
In November 2017, she was appointed as a part time-member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India, a non-constitutional, non-permanent and autonomous body created to give economic guidance to the Government of India, especially the Prime Minister. While being in the post, she raised concerns over the structural slowdown of the India economy and advocated for major economic reforms.
In September 2019, she was dropped from the council. She is also affiliated with the Financial Access Initiative of New York University.
Controversy
On May 25 2020, an article written by economist Shamika Ravi called ‘A Pandemic Prescription’ appeared in The Indian Express’ print and online edition. After the article was published, Ravi was accused of replicating a data collected and analysed by a fellow-economist Karthik Muralidharan without acknowledging him at all. As the news came to light, on 27 May, The Indian Express withdrew the article from its website. Shamika also issued an apology for mentioning verbatim quotations of Karthik Murlidharam in her article and assured her followers of not repeating it again. The controversy gre bigger when on 29 May 2020, the Indian School of Business (ISB) took to twitter to distance itself away from Shamika by mentioning that Ravi was not a permanent faculty at the institute, but rather an adjunct faculty who taught in some of our programmes. The ISB also asked Shamika to delete “professor at ISB” from the bio of her Twitter account. [2]Firstpost
ISB would like to clarify that Dr Shamika Ravi is not a permanent faculty member at the ISB. She is an adjunct faculty member who has taught in some of our ISB’s programmes. @IndianExpress recently withdrew Dr Ravi’s press article titled ‘A Pandemic Prescription.’ dated May 25.
— ISB (@ISBedu) May 29, 2020
The reason stated was that the article didn’t meet the daily’s standards of professional integrity. Since then, Dr Ravi has publicly apologised for plagiarism using her twitter handle.
— ISB (@ISBedu) May 29, 2020
In response to ISB’s claims, Ravi took to twitter and gave an explanation about her association with the ISB. She also slammed the institute for its ‘bullying tactics.’
1) I am not an adjunct faculty but Visiting Professor @ISBedu. Was permanent faculty from 2005-15. Have taught too many courses to keep count in 16 yrs.
2) I put out a public apology LONG before IE did anything.
3) I’ve not heard from ISB management.
4) Grow up.Don’t get bullied. https://t.co/M1dFAtkjZV— Prof Shamika Ravi (@ShamikaRavi) May 29, 2020
Facts/Trivia
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Shamika is a multi-lingual person, fluent in English, Hindi and Malayalam.
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She holds interest in Policy analysis, Data Analysis, Strategy making, Project management, and International Relations.
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In the wake of the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, Shamika Ravi helped in making the statistics to describe the spread and toll of the pandemic. She regularly takes to her Twitter account to post graphs and simple dot point explanations on everything from fatality rates to active cases and much more.
COVID death rate per million people:
1) rising sharply in Eastern Europe
2) rising slowly in East Asia
3) India = 108.6 (73) pic.twitter.com/6NqAB1U0eZ— Prof Shamika Ravi (@ShamikaRavi) January 5, 2021
| 1. | ↑ | Shamika Ravi LinkedIn |
| 2. | ↑ | Firstpost |
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Conclusion
As one of the most esteemed members of the PM Economic Advisory Council, Shamika Ravi has proven her mettle in multifarious domains. As you scroll through the Shamika Ravi wiki page, you will get to see how she from her humble origins in Bihar has managed to reach the gates of the PM office. This tale in itself is resonant of a person’s ambitions and how he or she can reach the echelons of success through hard work and determination. Her story is a mirror to all those who wish to make it big in the world, coming from limited means. We hope this story inspired you in the right direction and for more insights like these, keep visiting the website.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q.1 What was the controversy Shamika Ravi embroiled in?
For those unaware, Shamika Ravi was involved in an untoward scenario when she replicated the data, previously analyzed by Karthik Muralidharan (her fellow economist) for an Indian Express article. However, after it came to light, she humbly apologized and the article was taken off IE’s website.
Q.2 What are the areas of her focus?
Her key areas of focus include – policy and data analysis, project management, curating strategies, and commenting on International Relations.
Q.3 From where did she complete her education?
She did her initial schooling in Bihar, and then joined DPS (New Delhi). From there she went on to complete her graduation in Economics from Lady Shriram College, New Delhi, and her Masters from Delhi School Of Economics. After that, she went on to complete her higher education at – New York University.
Q.4 What were her contributions during the COVID-19 pandemic?
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Shamika Ravi helped to statistically map the extent of the pandemic in India, against the global rate.
