S and P President's father defends decision to downgrade U.S. debt rating

Jamshedpur/Ranchi (Jharkhand), Aug 11 (ANI): Standard and Poor's (S and P) President Deven Sharma's father R.N. Sharma on Thursday defended the decision of his son's firm to downgrade the debt rating of the United States, one of the biggest economies of the world.

Deven had last week stripped the U.S. of its reputable AAA credit rating and brought it down to AA+.

Deven's father R.N. Sharma told mediapersons that the job of the firm was to present the fact to hundreds of investors across the world market.

"I would say that he fulfilled his responsibilities and he has not tried to hide any fact. He never thought that how can any economy be so big. That is not his job, his job is to look at many factors in an economic situation and then report it to the investors," said R.N Sharma.

Deven Sharma was a mechanical engineering student and alumni of one of India's foremost engineering institutes Birla Institute of Technology (BIT) Mesra (Ranchi) in 1977.

"People used to like him because of his friendly and sociable nature. He was a happy go lucky kind of a person. But, yes he had a very disciplined life," said Gopal Pathak, Deven's college batch mate.

Deven completed his schooling from De Nobili in Dhanbad in 1971.

He moved to the U.S. to complete his master's degree from the University of Wisconsin and went on to pursue a doctorate degree in business management from the Ohio State University. (ANI)