New Delhi, March 18 -- Mark Carney, sworn in as the 24th Prime Minister of Canada on Friday, is a newbie in the world of politics. But then, so was the late Manmohan Singh, till former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao made him our finance minister in 1991.

Indeed, the parallels between the paths taken by Singh and Carney are uncanny.

Both pursued higher studies in Economics at Oxford University and went on to get their doctorate degree from Nuffield College: Singh in the early 1960s and Carney in the early 1990s. In age, they're 33 years apart. Both served as the heads of their respective central banks. Manmohan Singh was the 15th governor of the Reserve Bank of India (1982-85). Carney, the head of two central banks, was the eighth governor...