Things you might not know about Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s first full-time woman Finance Minister
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all set to deliver her second Budget in the Parliament on February 1, and we bring you some facts about India’s first full-time woman FM.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has her task cut out as the country nears the end of a rather tumultuous fiscal year. From a rise in onion prices to a slowdown in the manufacturing industry, the Indian economy has not fared as well as expected.
Nirmala Sitharaman, the first woman to serve as the full-time Finance Minister of India, will deliver her second Budget in the Parliament on February 1.
Before taking on her current role, she was also the first woman to head India’s Defense Ministry. Additionally, she has served as the Minister of State (independent charge) of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
The 60-year-old former spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is currently the senior-most woman in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet. In 2019, she ranked 34th in Forbes’ list of Most Powerful Women in the World.
In 2019, Nirmala Sitharaman broke away from long-standing traditions when she ditched the colonial briefcase and opted for a red cloth bag or bahi katha to carry the Union Budget papers. Chief Economic Advisor Subramanian, said that her move symbolised departure from slavery of Western thought.
In her first Budget in July 2019, Sitharaman described that rolling out women-led policies and bringing women into the socio-economic transformation of the country would be important to the present government.
She constituted a new committee, ‘Naari tu Narayani,’ to ensure maximum allocation of funds for women’s welfare.
She also set up a task force headed by the Economic Affairs Secretary to prepare a roadmap for the "national infrastructure pipeline" from 2019-20 to 2024-25 under the Rs 100 lakh crore infra plan, which was unveiled recently, in accordance with the government’s vision to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25.
Her term as the Defense Minister was turbulent with the Government facing ire over the Rafale deal. However, Nirmala Sitharaman was significant in establishing industrial defence corridors in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, and other successful initiatives.
Born on August 18, 1959, to a middle-class family in Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu, Nirmala’s father worked in the Railways, and she spent her childhood in different parts of the state. She has a bachelor’s degree from Seethalakshmi Ramaswamy College, Tiruchirapalli, and an MPhil in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University.
After marrying Parakala Prabhakar in 1986, the couple moved to London, where Sitharaman worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), and also had a brief stint at BBC World. Returning to India in 1991, she joined the BJP in 2004, though her husband’s family was completely pro-Congress.
Before joining the party, she was a member of the National Women Commission.
She rose in prominence and during her stint as the BJP spokesperson, she came to be known as the voice and face of the party, as well as for holding her own against political stalwarts in face-offs and TV debates.
Nirmala Sitharaman is also a founding member of the Pranava School in Hyderabad, set up by her husband, who served as a communications advisor to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu.
In 2017, a video of her making avakaya pickle (Andhra-style mango pickle) on the internet won many hearts and showed an ordinary side of the politico.
(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)
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