Who was the first Vice-Chairman of the NITI Ayog?

Correct answer: A) Arvind Panagariya. NITI Aayog replaced the Planning Commission on 1 January 2015. Arvind Panagariya, the economist from Columbia University, was its first Vice-Chairman and served until August 2017. The Chairman was the Prime Minister, so the Vice-Chairman was the executive head of the body.

• B) Raghuram Rajan: He was Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (2013 to 2016), not a NITI Aayog functionary.
• C) Chandrashekhara Subramanyam: This is not the name of anyone who held the Vice-Chairman post. Treat it as a distractor.
• D) Rajiv Kumar: He was a later Vice-Chairman, so he is not the first. Aspirants who remember him from recent news often pick him by mistake.

Core concept: The institutional design of NITI Aayog, including its governing council of States and its role as a think tank for cooperative federalism. This links to the Mains theme of the transition from centralised planning to a market-oriented policy framework.

Trap: Candidates confuse the first holder with the most recent or most publicised one. Always anchor the question to the year the body was set up.