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| Tuesday, 25 May 2004 |
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Short profiles of prominent ministers in India's new government NEW DELHI, (AFP) Herewith brief profiles of ministers holding key portfolios in India's new Congress party-led coalition government under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh: Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, 58, was a favourite of the markets when he followed the popular Manmohan Singh as finance minister from 1996 to 1998. Expanding on the liberalisation process launched by the now prime minister, the Harvard-educated Chidambaram lowered tariffs and taxes in what industry described as a "dream budget" in 1996. Chidambaram held other top portfolios including commerce and home under Rajiv Gandhi who was prime minister from 1984 to 1989. Chidambaram quit Congress in a clash with Narasimha Rao, the Congress prime minister from 1991 to 1996, and joined a regional party in his native Tamil Nadu state. He returned to the Congress fold two years ago. Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, a 73-year-old literary critic and diplomat, has served as India's envoy to Pakistan, China, Britain and the United Nations. He drafted the Congress election platform which accused the defeated Hindu nationalist government of making India "subordinate" to the United States. A frank speaker, he will be a main driver of a fledgling peace process with nuclear rival Pakistan with which India has gone to war three times. He has said Congress was "willing to discuss everything from the nuclear issue to Kashmir." He is a close aide of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, joining her during her meetings with foreign dignitaries. Singh was partially educated at Cambridge, where he developed a correspondence with "Passage to India" novelist E.M. Forster, about whom he would later publish a book. Shivraj Patil, 68, held several ministries in the 1980s under prime ministers Indira and Rajiv Gandhi including defence. The home ministry is a prized cabinet post as it includes control over key security forces. The last home minister was Lal Krishna Advani, the powerful deputy prime minister in the Hindu nationalist government. A former university lecturer in the western state of Maharashtra, Patil served a decade ago as speaker of the lower house of parliament where he allowed the broadcast of proceedings for the first time. Patil had a marathon run of seven electoral wins but lost in the most recent polls, meaning Congress will need to find him a safe seat to win within six months. Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, 68, is a veteran Congress leader who has held the portfolios of finance and commerce in previous Congress governments. A writer, journalist and lecturer, he has served on the boards of the international agencies such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Mukherjee was rated one of the best finance ministers in the world by Euromoney magazine in 1984 and signed the World Trade Organisation treaty on behalf of India ten years later. Mukherjee, a native of the eastern state of West Bengal, was been billed as a potential prime minister. |
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