Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman who was the Minister of State with an independent charge of the Commerce Ministry, emerged the biggest gainer.
She became the first full-time woman defence minister and the second woman to take charge of the key portfolio. Indira Gandhi, as then Prime Minister, had also held the portfolio in the seventies.
As the Defence Minister, Sitharaman will be a member of the crucial Cabinet Committee on Security whose members include the Prime Minister, Home Minister, External Affairs Minister and the Finance Minister.
Nirmala Sitharaman was born to a middle-class family in Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu on August 18, 1959. Her father worked in the Railways while her mother was a homemaker and a great lover of books. She has her father’s disciplinary nature and her mother’s love for books. She spent her childhood in different parts of Tamil Nadu as her father’s job was transferable. Thus, travelling and being adaptive came naturally to her.
She completed her graduation from Seethalakshmi Ramasamy College, Tiruchirappalli and obtained her masters from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. Her favourite subject was globalisation and its impact on developing countries. It is this that led her to become the Commerce Minister of the Indian government. She married Parakala Prabhakar in 1986 and the couple moved to London. Sitharaman succeeded in the corporate world there but finally came back to India in 1991. The couple is blessed with a daughter.
IndianBureaucracy.com wishes Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman the very best.