Nirmala Sitharaman is an Indian politician belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Nirmala Sitharaman is currently serving as the Defence Minister of India. She is the first woman to hold the position independently. She is also a member of the Rajya Sabha for Karnataka.
The Minister of Defence is the head of the Ministry of Defence of the Government of India. They are often assisted by a Minister of State for Defence and less-commonly, the lower-ranked Deputy Minister of Defence. The defence minister additionally serves as President of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, and as Chancellor of the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology and of the National Defence University.
The first defence minister of independent India was Baldev Singh, who served in Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet during 1947–52. Nirmala Sitharaman, the current defence minister of India is the second woman since Indira Gandhi to hold this major post.
A stern articulator, Nirmala was one of the spokespersons of BJP under Ravi Shankar Prasad. Even though her husband and his family was pro-Congress, Sitharaman joined the BJP in 2006. In keeping with her accomplishments in London, she climbed up the ladder of success within the BJP as well and occupied several important positions in the party.
In 2010, during the tenure of Nitin Gadkari, she was appointed as the spokesperson of the party.she was inducted in Narendra Modi’s cabinet as a junior minister.
Sitharaman worked as the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Ministry of Commerce & Industry in the Narendra Modi-led NDA cabinet. She also holds the position of Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs.
In May 2016, she was one of the 12 candidates nominated by the BJP to contest the Rajya Sabha elections due on 11 June 2016. She successfully contested her seat from Karnataka. On 3 September 2017 she was elevated to second female Defence Minister of India.
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Family and Personal Background of Nirmala Sitharaman
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.
