Stabilising the rupee is at the top of a long to do list for India's new central bank chief. But it is a looming appointment in the US, not New Delhi, that will likely determine the fate of India's currency.

University of Chicago Professor Raghuram Rajan will fill the Reserve Bank of India's hot seat beginning next month, the government said Tuesday. Rajan, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, has hawkish leanings. He has been sceptical both of the US Federal Reserve's quantitative easing policies right now and its easy money stance during the 2000s. If he is hawkish in India, that may help tame high inflation-consumer prices are rising at an annual clip of 9%.