Janak Raj to succeed Michael Patra at RBI's monetary policy department

The Reserve Bank of India has appointed Janak Raj, principal advisor to the monetary policy department, as executive director. He succeeds Michael Patra effective January 24. With this, the RBI will have 12 EDs, its full strength.
 
Patra will be part of the six-member monetary policy committee (MPC) as a deputy governor, and so will be Raj as an ED of the department. Raj would be part of MPC as an internal RBI member.
 
However, Raj also retires in a few months, and the RBI is also fast-tracking promotions of two chief general managers in the bank. Coupled with the superannuation of Deepak Mohanty in about four months, RBI would have two executive director positions vacant. Sources say Mridul Sagar, adviser in charge of international department, and Rajiv Ranjan, adviser and chief of economic and policy research department, could be successors of Raj and Mohanty.