who is the finance minister of india?

Answer 1

P. Chidambaram (Tamil: ப. சிதம்பரம்) or Palaniappan Chidambaram is an Indian politician. He is the present Finance Minister of India, in the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He has been on the portfolio since May 2004, when the UPA formed the government. He was also a cabinet minister with the same portfolio for a brief period in the United Front coalition government from 1996 to 1998 and Prior to this, he had been Minister of State (Deputy Minister) in the Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao led Congress-party governments, holding other portfolios.

A Harvard graduate, Chidambaram is regarded by financial gurus, investors, financial press and people across India as a qualified and highly competent cabinet minister for the post of finance, carrying forward the economic reforms started in 1991 by then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh. Chidambaram, together with present Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Deputy Chairman of India’s Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia is a part of what the Indian financial press calls India’s economic ‘dream team’.

Background & Education-

Palaniappan Chidambaram, or PC, as he is popularly known in the Indian press, was born September 16, 1945 in the village of Kanadukathan in Sivaganga District of Tamilnadu state, India, into an affluent family. He studied at Presidency College, Chennai, India and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree and then studied law at the Law college of the University of Madras, Chennai, and received his Bachelor of Law degree. He later went to the Harvard Business School where he took his Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree. In 1968, he married Nalini, a successful lawyer in her own right. They have a son, Karti Palaniappan Chidambaram.

Career as Lawyer-

In 1969, he enrolled as an Advocate in the Madras High Court and established a successful law practice. He was designated as a Senior Advocate in 1984. He has chambers in Delhi and Madras and practices in the Supreme Court and in various High Courts in India. He has also appeared in a number of arbitration proceedings in India and abroad.

Politics and Ministerial Portfolios-

Chidambaram was first elected to the Lok Sabha (Lower House) of Indian Parliament from the Sivaganga constituency of Tamil Nadu in general elections held in 1984. He was re-elected from the same constituency in the general elections of 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998 and in 2004.

He was inducted into the Union (Indian federal) Council of Ministers in the government headed by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on September 21, 1985 as a Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Commerce and then in the Ministry of Personnel. He was elevated to the rank of Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions in January, 1986. In October of the same year, he was appointed to the Ministry of Home Affairs as Minister of State for Internal Security. He continued to hold both the offices until general elections were called in 1989. The congress government was defeated in general elections in 1989.

When Chidambaram was first given a ministerial berth, he was one among a relatively young, well educated class of men brought into government by late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1984. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in May 1991 during an election campaign in the state of Tamilnadu and in general elections the following month, a sympathy wave for assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and a disunited opposition brought the Congress party back to power. Manmohan Singh, a leading economist and former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (India’s central bank) was made Finance Minister in the new government headed by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, essentially the first technocrat on the job in post-independent India. Manmohan Singh’s reforms began taking India away from the erstwhile Soviet-style centralised planning, into a liberalized, free market economy.

In June 1991, Chidambaram was inducted as a Minister of State (Independent Charge) in the Ministry of Commerce, a post he held till July, 1992 ; he was later re-appointed Minister of State (Independent Charge) in the Ministry of Commerce in February, 1995 and held the post till April, 1996 . He made some radical changes in India’s export-import (EXIM) policy, while in the Ministry of Commerce.

In 1996, Chidambaram quit the Congress party and joined a breakaway faction of the Tamilnadu state unit of the Congress party called the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC). In general elections held in 1996, TMC along with a few national and regional level opposition parties formed a coalition government. The coalition government came as a big break for Chidambaram, who was given the key cabinet portfolio of Finance and put him in the limelight. Though the coalition government was a short-lived one (it fell in 1998), it exposed Chidambaram’s competency as Finance Minister, a factor that was to help him be inducted into the same key portfolio in the government formed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2004.

In 1998, the Bhartatiya Janata Party (BJP) took reins of government for the first time and it was not until May 2004 that Chidambaram would be back in Government. Chidambaram became Minister of Finance again in the congress party-led United Progressive Alliance government on May 24, 2004. During this intervening period, Chidambaram made some experiments in his political career, leaving the Tamil Maanila Congress in 2001 and forming his own party, the Congress Jananayaka Peravai, largely focused on the regional politics of Tamilnadu State ; the party, however, failed to take off into mainstream Tamilnadu or national politics. Just prior to the elections of 2004, he merged his party with the mainstream Congress party.

Political Traits-

Generally a simple down-to-earth person, Chidambaram is at ease slipping in and out of the highly-charged politics of his home state Tamilnadu, speaking to the financial media in Mumbai or presenting India’s views at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.

He is a trustee of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, associated with charitable causes and also a trustee of the Tamil ‘Ilakiya Chintanai’ (Tamil Literary Foundation), Chennai, India. He is also fond of Literature and sports. He has delivered lectures in many Universities, both at home and abroad.

As it is with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Chidambaram is hard-working and widely believed to be honest, and is sometimes seen not to fit into the typical present-day Indian political class, which to a large extent thrives on double-speak ..

Answer 2

Mr.Palaniappan Chidambaram

Answer 3

Hounarable Shri.Chidambaram

Answer 4

Honourable shri P chidambaram, the second time that he has been awarded this portfolio

Answer 5

P.Chidambaram

Answer 6

P. Chidambaram ... By the way you seem to be visitor from abroad...

Answer 7

Mr.P.Chidambaram

Answer 8

P.Chidambaram. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.Chidambaram

Answer 9

P. Chidambaram
Ask any taxman.

Answer 10

P.Chidambaram, as many have rightly said.

Answer 11

MR P CHIDAMBARAM AN ADVOCATE BY PROFESSION