An economist by training who moved into financial journalism after a short stint in academia, Niranjan is renowned for his ability to decode contemporary economic developments for the average newspaper reader.

Currently, he is the Research Director and Senior Fellow at IDFC Institute, a public policy think tank. He provides direction to the Institute’s research programmes. Previously, as the Executive Editor of Mint, a financial daily, he managed the opinion section, wrote the daily editorials and the award-winning Café Economics column. He also helped launch the data journalism initiative at the newspaper.

Niranjan was awarded the Jefferson Fellowship by the East-West Center in Hawaii in 1998. He received the Society of Publishers in Asia Awards for excellence in opinion writing two years in a row (2010 and 2011). He won the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2012 and the B.R. Shenoy Award for Economics in 2017.

His deep interest in economics education as well as mentoring young students led him to be inducted as a member of the academic advisory board of the Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics, and the economics curriculum advisory committees of the Mumbai School of Economics and Public Policy, Ramnarain Ruia College and Welingkar Institute of Management. 

His tryst with the development sector also led him to be on the Board of Trustees of the Centre for Civil Society. As an Influencer, Niranjan lends his voice, his expertise in using data to convey stories for positive action, and contributes the power of his penmanship to the cause of women empowerment. “In India unequal opportunities given to women vis-à-vis their male counterparts need to be addressed if the country has to progress. The future of the country is tied up with the future of 50% of its population. Any initiative targeting growth should factor this in,” he says.