Who is Nirmala Sitharaman?

Nirmala Sitharaman was born on 18th August 1959. She is an Indian economist and politician currently serving as the Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of India. Since 2014, she is a member of the Rajya Sabha which is the upper house of the Indian Parliament. She formerly also served as the Defence Minister of India and thus became India’s second female defense minister. She also became India’s second female finance minister after Indira Gandhi and the first full–time female Finance Minister.

Previously, she also served as a national spokesperson for Bharatiya Janata Party. Under the Ministry of Finance and the Minister for Commerce and Industry, she has served as the Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs with an independent charge. She ranked 41st in the world and got featured in the Forbes 2020 list of 100 most powerful women.
Sitharaman did her schooling from Madras and Tiruchirappalli. She completed her B.A. in Economics from Seethalakshmi Ramaswamy College in Tiruchirappalli. Then in 1984, she pursued her Master's from JNU, Delhi. She has also done a Ph.D. in dissertation on Indo-European Textile Trade. She met Parakala Prabhakar in JNU and then in 1986, she married him. After her marriage, she moved to London. There in London, she worked as the Senior Manager of Research and Analysis with Price Waterhouse. She also worked with BBC World Service and Agricultural Engineers Association in the United Kingdom.

She returned to India in 1991 with her family. Her husband’s family was completely pro-Congress. She joined BJP in 2004. Before joining BJP, she was also a member of the National Women Commission from 2003 to 2005.

By: Kiara Sharma

Mahaveer Public School