This article will be permanently flagged as inappropriate and made unaccessible to everyone. Are you certain this article is inappropriate? Excessive Violence Sexual Content Political / Social
Email Address:
Article Id: WHEBN0000770162 Reproduction Date:
Shashi Tharoor (born 9 March 1956) is an Indian politician, writer, public intellectual and former diplomat who has served as Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala since 2009. He was previously Minister of State in the Government of India for External Affairs[2] (2009–2010) and Human Resource Development (2012–2014).[2] He is a member of the Indian National Congress and served as an official spokesperson for the party from January to October 2014. Until 2007 he was a career official at the United Nations, rising to the rank of Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information in 2001. After 29 years within the UN, Tharoor announced his departure after finishing second in the 2006 elections for the Secretary-General to Ban Ki-moon.[3]
Tharoor is also a writer, having authored 15 bestselling works of fiction and non-fiction since 1981, all of which are centered on India and its history, culture, film, politics, society, foreign policy, and more. He is also the author of hundreds of columns and articles in publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek, and The Times of India. He was a contributing editor for Newsweek International for two years. From 2010 to 2012, he wrote a column in The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle and, for most of 2012, until his appointment as Minister, a column in Mail Today; he also writes an internationally syndicated monthly column for Project Syndicate. He also wrote regular columns for the Indian Express (1991–93 and 1996–2001), The Hindu (2001–2008), and The Times of India (2007–2009).
Tharoor is also a globally recognized speaker on India's economics and politics, as well as on freedom of the press, human rights, Indian culture, and international affairs.
Tharoor was born in London to Lily and Chandran Piyush Pandey.
A theatre buff in his school days, he played Antony to Mira Nair's Cleopatra in a 1974 production of Antony and Cleopatra.[6] At St. Stephen's in the early 1970s he founded the Quiz Club; he also revived the Wodehouse Society, which is no longer in existence. Upon election as President of the College Union he relinquished the Secretaryship of the History Society as well as the editorship of the campus humour magazine Kooler Talk. He was invited by St. Stephen's College to deliver the college's 125th Anniversary Jubilee Lecture in 2005.[7]
In 1975 he moved to the United States to pursue graduate studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University,[8] where he obtained his MA and MALD and was awarded the Robert B. Stewart Prize for Best Student and completed his PhD at the age of 22. At Fletcher he also helped found and was the first editor of the Fletcher Forum of International Affairs. He has also been awarded an honorary D.Litt by the University of Puget Sound and a doctorate honoris causa in history by the University of Bucharest.[9]
Tharoor has two sons from his first marriage: Ishaan and Kanishk Tharoor. Both are graduates of Yale University and are fondly remembered for starting the Yale Gingerbread House Study Break,[10] which helps students get into the holiday spirit during the stress of fall finals. Tharoor has two sisters, Shobha Tharoor-Srinivasan, who lives in the United States, and Smita Tharoor, who lives in London.
Tharoor's career in the
Tharoor's first wife was Tilottama Mukherji, a granddaughter of Kailashnath Katju and thus a first cousin of Markandey Katju.[70] She is now a professor of humanities at New York University.[71] They have two sons, Kanishk and Ishaan.[72] Ishaan is a former senior editor at Time magazine, and now writes on foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Kanishk is a former editor at Open Democracy, and is working on a novel in New York[73] Kanishk is associate editor at openDemocracy.net.[74] Later he married Christa Giles, a Canadian diplomat working at the United Nations.[75] After their divorce, Tharoor married Sunanda Pushkar in his ancestral home in Elavanchery village in Kerala's Palakkad district on August 2010. On 17 January 2014 Sunanda aged 52, was found dead at The Leela Hotel in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.[76]
Tharoor has lectured widely on India,[67] and is often quoted for his observations, including, "India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay."[68] He has also coined a memorable comparison of India's "thali" to the American "melting pot": "If America is a melting pot, then to me India is a thali – a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast".[69]
Tharoor began writing at the age of 6, and his first published story appeared in Sunday edition of The Free Press Journal, in Mumbai at age 10. His World War II adventure novel Operation Bellows, inspired by the Biggles books, was serialized in the Junior Statesman starting a week before his 11th birthday. Each of his books has been a bestseller in India.The Great Indian Novel is in its 42nd edition, and a Silver Jubilee special edition has been slated for publication on the book's 25th anniversary, September 2014, from Viking Pengun India.The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone has undergone seven hardback re-printings there.
Tharoor has been a columnist in each of India's three best-known English-language newspapers,[64] most recently for The Hindu newspaper (2001–2008) and in a weekly column, "Shashi on Sunday," in the Times of India (January 2007 – December 2008). Following his resignation as Minister of State for External Affairs, he began a fortnightly column on foreign policy issues in the Deccan Chronicle. Previously he was a columnist for the Gentleman magazine and the Indian Express newspaper, as well as a frequent contributor to Newsweek International and the International Herald Tribune. His op-eds and book reviews have appeared in the Washington Post,[65] the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times,[66] amongst other papers. His monthly column, "India Reawakening", distributed by Project Syndicate, appears in 80 newspapers around the world.
Tharoor has written numerous books in English.[63]
In May 2014 Tharoor won his re-election from Thiruvananthapuram, defeating O. Rajagopal of the Bharatiya Janata Party by a margin of more than 15,000 votes, and became a member of the 15th Lok Sabha, sitting in Opposition. He was named Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, a position previously held by former Prime Ministers Vajpayee and Gujral. Shashi Tharoor was dropped from the post of congress spokesperson on 13 October 2014 after he praised statements of his party's opponent, Prime Minister Modi. [36] [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]
As Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, Tharoor became the first elected representative in India to issue annual reports on his work as MP, including furnishing accounts of his MPLADS expenditure. In 2012 he published a half-term report followed in 2014 by a full-term report.
In 2012 Tharoor was re-inducted into the Union Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with the portfolio of minister of state for HRD. In this role he took special interest in the problems and challenges of adult education, distance education and enhancing high-quality research by academic institutions. He was responsible for the ministry's written answers to Parliament's questions and responded to oral questions on education whenever the Lok Sabha's Question Hour was allowed to function. His initiatives on reducing over-regulation in certain areas of education, in promoting values education in schools, and in pushing the ministry to a more liberal interpretation of copyright on educational materials, were appreciated inside and outside the ministry. He addressed forums and conferences on education, explained a vision of India's educational challenges in the context of the country's demographic opportunities, and stressed that education was not only a socioeconomic issue, but also a national security issue.
Between 2010 and 2012 Tharoor remained active in Parliament and was member-convenor of the Parliamentary Forum on Disaster Management, a member of the Standing Committee on External Affairs, of the Consultative Committee of Defence, the Public Accounts Committee, and the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Telecoms. He participated in several important debates of the 15th Lok Sabha, including on the Lokpal Bill, the demand for grants of the Ministry of External Affairs and of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the black money debate, and so on. In the special debate on the 60th anniversary of the Indian Parliament, Tharoor was one of four members of the Congress Party, including party President Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee, to be invited to address the Lok Sabha.
Tharoor was a pioneer in using social media as an instrument of political interaction. He was India's most-followed politician on Twitter until 2013, when he was overtaken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was the first Indian to reach 10,000 and 100,000 followers on the medium and has millions of followers. However, some of his Twitter posts proved controversial and were highlighted negatively by the opposition and press. As Minister of State for External Affairs he re-established long-dormant diplomatic relationships with African nations, where his fluency in French made him popular with Francophone countries and their heads of state. He was also the first Indian minister to visit Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake. He initiated new policy-planning activities on the Indian Ocean and represented India at global events during his 11-month tenure as minister. In April 2010, he resigned from the position, following allegations that he had misused his office to get shares in the IPL cricket franchise. Tharoor denied the charges and, during his resignation speech in Parliament, called for a full inquiry. In a 2014 rejoinder he defended his position: "I was never involved in a scam of any sort in the IPL- I was brought down because...[I had] antagonised some powerful political cricketing interests" and added that he had "cooperated extensively with the detailed investigation conducted by the Enforcement Directorate into the entire issue", and no wrongdoing had been found.
In March 2009 Tharoor contested the Indian General Elections as a candidate for the Congress Party in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. His opponents included P. Ramachandran Nair of the Communist Party of India (CPI), Neelalohitadasan Nadar of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), MP Gangadharan of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and PK Krishna Das of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Despite criticism that he was an "elite outsider", Tharoor won the elections by a margin of about 100,000. He was then selected as a minister of state in the Council of Ministers of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. On 28 May 2009 he was sworn in as Minister of State for External Affairs, in charge of Africa, Latin America, and the Gulf.
[32][33][34][35]
Prior to embarking on his political career, Shashi Tharoor also served on the board of overseers of the Breakthrough.[29] At the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1976, he founded and was the first chair of the editorial board of The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, a journal examining issues in international relations.[30] Tharoor was an international adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva from 2008 to 2011. He served on the advisory council of the Hague Institute for International Justice and was elected Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities during 1995–96.[31] He also supported various educational causes, including as Patron of GEMS Modern Academy in Dubai.
In February 2007, amidst speculation about his post-UN future, the Indian press reported that Tharoor might be inducted into Council of Ministers of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as Minister of State for External Affairs. In the same month, an American gossip blog reported that Tharoor was a finalist for the position of dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles, but he withdrew his name from consideration at the final stage. Instead, Tharoor became chairman of Dubai-based Afras Ventures, which established the Afras Academy for Business Communication (AABC) in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, the city in which he would go on to win two parliamentary elections. He also spoke around the world about India and Kerala, where he spent increasing amounts of time before moving for good to India in October 2008.
In 2006, the government of India nominated Tharoor for the post of UN Secretary-General. Tharoor finished second, behind Ban Ki-moon, in each of the four straw polls conducted by the UN Security Council and won the online poll conducted by the BBC News website. After the fourth poll, Ban emerged as the only candidate with the support of all five permanent members, each of whom had the power to veto candidates. Of the seven contenders for the post, including a president, two deputy prime ministers, several foreign ministers and a prince, Tharoor remained the only other to enjoy a majority in the Security Council and came within two votes of Ban on the first ballot. The United States opposed him, and China abstained from voting. After the vote, Tharoor withdrew his candidacy and declined Ban's invitation to remain in service beyond the expiry of his term as Under-Secretary-General. Had he been elected, the then-50-year-old Shashi Tharoor would have been the second-youngest Secretary-General, the youngest having been Dag Hammarskjöld, who was 46.[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
On 9 February 2007, Tharoor resigned from the post of UN Under-Secretary-General and left the UN on 1 April 2007.[14][15][16][17]
In 1996 Tharoor was appointed director of communications and special projects and executive assistant to the then Secretary-General
[13][12], spending considerable time on the ground during the civil war there.Yugoslavia After a further stint at the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, during which he became the first chairman of the staff elected by UNHCR personnel worldwide, Tharoor left UNHCR. In 1989 he was appointed special assistant to the Under-Secretary General for Special Political Affairs, the unit that later became the Peacekeeping Operations wing in New York. Until 1996, he led the team responsible for peacekeeping operations in the former [11]
India, Rajya Sabha, Jawaharlal Nehru, Narendra Modi, St John's College, Cambridge
Rajya Sabha, India, Bharatiya Janata Party, Government of India, Parliament of India
Rajya Sabha, India, Politics of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian independence movement
Kerala, Bangalore, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram district, Mumbai
Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kozhikode, Thrissur
Indian National Congress, Thiruvananthapuram, Communist Party of India, Bharatiya Janata Party, Voter turnout
Indian National Congress, Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, India, Kottayam
India, Philippines, United States, Pakistan, United Kingdom
Indian Premier League, Indian National Congress, Duke University, North Carolina, Kerala