Pranab Mukherjee
Pranab Mukherjee | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Union Cabinet Minister for Finance | |
| Assumed office January 24, 2009 | |
| Prime Minister | Manmohan Singh |
| Preceded by | Manmohan Singh |
| In office January 1982 – December 1984 | |
| Prime Minister | Indira Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi |
| Preceded by | R. Venkataraman |
| Succeeded by | Vishwanath Pratap Singh |
| Union Cabinet Minister for External Affairs | |
| In office October 24, 2006 – May 23, 2009 | |
| Prime Minister | Manmohan Singh |
| Preceded by | Manmohan Singh |
| Succeeded by | S. M. Krishna |
| In office February 10, 1995 – May 16, 1996 | |
| Prime Minister | P. V. Narasimha Rao |
| Preceded by | Dinesh Singh |
| Succeeded by | Sikander Bakht |
| Union Cabinet Minister for Defence | |
| In office May 22, 2004 – October 26, 2006 | |
| Prime Minister | Manmohan Singh |
| Preceded by | George Fernandes |
| Succeeded by | A. K. Antony |
| Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission of India | |
| In office June 24, 1991 – May 15, 1996 | |
| Prime Minister | P. V. Narasimha Rao |
| Preceded by | Mohan Dharia |
| Succeeded by | Madhu Dandavate |
| Member of Lok Sabha | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 11, 1935 Birbhum, British Raj |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Political party | INC |
| Spouse | Suvra Mukherjee |
| Residence(s) | Kolkata, India |
| Alma mater | University of Calcutta |
| Website | Official Website |
Pranab Kumar Mukherjee (Bengali: প্রণব কুমার মুখোপাধ্যায় born December 11, 1935, West Bengal, India) is the current Finance Minister of India[1][2] and leader of the current (15th) Lok Sabha[3].
He is currently a senior member of the Cabinet Committees on Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Parliamentary Affairs, Political Affairs, Prices, Security, Unique Identification Authority of India, World Trade Organization, and heads the Group of Ministers Committee on the Dabhol dispute. He also heads the Group of Ministers investigating the alleged corruption of the previous NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government. He is also a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision-making body of the Congress party.[4]
Personal life
Early life
Pranab Mukherjee was born in Mirati village near Kirnahar town, District Birbhum, West Bengal to Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee and Rajlakshmi Mukherjee. His father was active in the Congress party from 1920, was a member of AICC, and West Bengal Legislative Council (1952–64), and President, District Congress Committee, Birbhum (WB).[5] His father was also a respected freedom fighter and was jailed for more than 10 years. He attended the Suri Vidyasagar College, Suri (Birbhum), then affiliated with the University of Calcutta.
Education
He holds a Master of Arts degrees in History and Political Science & has a degree in law from the University of Calcutta. He has been an advocate and a college teacher in his long public career.[citation needed] He also has an honorary D. Litt.
Personal life
Pranab Mukherjee married Suvra Mukherjee on July 13, 1957 and has two sons, Abhijit (who is contesting the West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections in 2011 for the 1st time) and Surojit and a daughter Sharmistha. His hobbies are reading, gardening and music. [1]
Professional background
Pranab Mukherjee began his career as a college-teacher and later as a journalist. He worked for noted Bengali publication Desher Dak (Call of Motherland). He also became trustee of Bangiya Sahitya Parishad and later President of Nikhil Bharat Banga Sahitya Sammelan.[6]
Political career
He has a parliamentary career of nearly five decades, which began as a member of Rajya Sabha (upper house) from the Congress Party in 1969; he was re-elected in 1975, 1981, 1993 and 1999. In 1973, he joined the cabinet as Union Deputy Minister, Industrial Development. He rose through a series of cabinet posts to become the Finance Minister of India from 1982 to 1984.[7] In 1984, he was rated as the best Finance Minister of the World according to a survey of Euromoney magazine.[8][9] His term was noted for India not withdrawing the last US$ 1.1 billion instalment of an IMF loan. Dr. Manmohan Singh was serving Reserve Bank of India as Governor during Pranab's term as Finance Minister. He was victimised by a coterie of Rajiv Gandhi by not being included in his cabinet after Lok Sabha election held subsequent to Indira Gandhi's assassination. He was pushed out of the Congress party for a brief period, and during this period he formed his own political party Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress, but later merged it with Congress party in 1989 after settlement with Rajiv Gandhi.[10] His political career revived when P.V. Narasimha Rao chose to appoint him as deputy chairman of the planning commission and subsequently as a union cabinet minister. He served as External Affairs Minister for the first time from 1995 to 1996 in Rao's cabinet. In 1997 he was voted Outstanding Parliamentarian.
He was also the President of the West Bengal state unit of Congress since 1985.But resigned in July,2010 due to work-load and is now succeeded by Manas Bhunia.. In 2004, when the Congress formed a government at the head of a coalition the new Congress Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was only a Rajya Sabha MP. So Pranab Mukherjee was made Leader of the House in the Lok Sabha when he won the Lok Sabha elections for the first time from Jangipur (Lok Sabha constituency). He also has the distinction of being a Minister for various high profile Ministries including Defence, Finance, External Affairs, Revenue, Shipping, Transport, Communication, Economic Affairs, Commerce and Industry ,He also heads the Congress Parliamentary Party and the Congress Legislative Party which consists of all the Congress MPs and MLAs in the country apart from being Leader of the House in Lok Sabha, Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee President and the Union Cabinet Minister of Finance in the Council of Ministers under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Congress-led Government. Pranab played crucial role in steering the Cabinet pre Lok Sabha elections when the Prime Minister underwent by-pass surgery by taking additional charges as chairman of the Cabinet Committee Of Political Affairs and Union Minister in Finance Ministry despite already being Union Minister of External Affairs.
Controversies
Pranab Mukherjee was a Minister in Mrs.Gandhi's Cabinet during the infamous Emergency and was held by many to be personally responsible for some of the excesses.[11]. He was summoned before the Shah Commission but followed Mrs.Gandhi's lead in refusing to resign before it. A police case was registered against him which was withdrawn when Mrs.Gandhi returned to power.
His role in making things difficult for Taslima Nasreen,so much so that she had to leave India was also criticised.[12]
He has also been accused of threatening banks if they invest in Gujarat, a state ruled currently by the Bharatiya Janata Party[13]
International role
Mukherjee and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed the Section 123 Agreement on October 10, 2008. He has been a member of the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund, of the World Bank, of the Asian Development Bank, and of the African Development Bank.
In 1984, he chaired the Group of 24 attached to the IMF and World Bank. Between May and November 1995, he presided over the SAARC Council of Ministers Conference.[14]
Political party role
Mukherjee is very well respected within the party social circles."[15] Other media accounts describe him as having "a reputation as a number-crunching politician with a phenomenal memory and an unerring survival instinct."[16]
After Sonia Gandhi reluctantly agreed to join politics, Pranab Mukherjee was one of her key mentors, guiding her through difficult situations with examples of how her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi would have done things.[17] Mukherjee's unfailing loyalty and competence have led to his closeness to Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, and helped him gain the position of Minister of Defence when the party came to power in 2004.
He has also held the position of Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission from 1991 to 1996.
His talents were on display during the negotiations for the Patent's Amendment Bill in early 2005. The Congress was committed to passing an IP bill, but their allies in the United Progressive Alliance from the Left front had a long tradition of opposing some of the monopoly aspects of intellectual property. Pranab Mukherjee, as Defence Minister, was not formally involved but was roped in for his negotiation skills. He drew on many old alliances including the CPI-M leader Jyoti Basu, and formed new intermediary positions, which included product patent and little else. Then he had to convince his own colleagues including commerce minister Kamal Nath, at one point saying: "An imperfect legislation is better than no legislation."[18] Finally the bill was approved on March 23, 2005.
Views on corruption
In an interview to rediff.com in 1998, he was asked about the sleaze in the Congress government, in which he was the Minister for External Affairs. He replied:
- Corruption is an issue. We have dealt with it in the manifesto. But I am sorry to say that these scams are not confined to the Congress or the Congress government alone. There are so many scams. So many leaders of various political parties are involved in them. So it would be too simplistic to say that the Congress government was involved in scams.[19]
Foreign Minister: October 2006
On 24 October 2006, he was appointed as the External Affairs Minister of India. His replacement in the Defence Ministry is A.K. Antony, a senior Congress Party politician and former Chief Minister of the southern state of Kerala.
Pranab Mukherjee was briefly considered for the post of the largely ceremonial Indian presidency. But his name was subsequently dropped after his contribution in the Union Cabinet was considered practically indispensable. Among Mukherjee's current legacy was the successful signing of the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement with the US government and then with the Nuclear Suppliers Group, allowing India to participate in civilian nuclear trade in spite of not having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He is also awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honor in 2007.
Finance Minister
In the second government of Manmohan Singh, Mr. Mukherjee, became the Finance Minister of India, a job he had held earlier, in the 1980s. On July 6, 2009, he presented the government's annual budget. In it, he announced many tax reforms, such as the scrapping of the 'irritant' Fringe Benefit Tax, and the Commodities Transaction Tax. He announced, that the Finance Ministry, was well on track, to implement the Goods and Services Tax, a tax, that has been praised by major corporate executives, and economists. He also expanded funding for social sector schemes, like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, girl's literacy, and health care. Also, he expanded infrastructure programmes, like the National Highway Development Programme, expansion of electricity coverage, and the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. However, many people, expressed concern, about the rising fiscal deficit, the highest since 1991. Mr. Mukherjee said, that the expansion in government spending was only temporary, and he said that the government, was committed to the principle of fiscal prudence. He presented the 2009 Union budget of India as well as 2010 Union budget of India and the 2011 budget also.
References
- ^ "Cabinet Ministers". Council of Ministers-Who's Who-Government: National Portal of India. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
- ^ "Brief profile of Pranab Mukherjee". Webpage of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
- ^ "15th Lok Sabha (18 May 2009-)". Webpage of the Lok Sabha. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
- ^ "Congress Working Committee". Webpage of the All India Congress Committee. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
- ^ Profile at Ministry of External Affairs
- ^ "FM Pranab's first priority: Presenting budget 09-10 (page3)". Indian Express. May 23, 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-23.
- ^ "The tallest short man". Sumit Mitra. The Hindustan Times, February 26, 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-27.
- ^ "The Pranab Mukherjee Budget". Sanjaya Baru. Business Standard, February 22, 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-05.
- ^ Profile from calcuttayellowpages.com
- ^ "FM Pranab's first priority: Presenting budget 09-10". Indian Express. May 23, 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-23.
- ^ How they buried Shah Commission report, even without an epitaph Indian Express - July 4, 2000
- ^ Taslima puts Pranab in a bind Times of India - February 18, 2008
- ^ Hands off Vibrant Gujarat, banks told Governance Now - January 15, 2011
- ^ Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) Executive Committee Profile
- ^ "India's new foreign minister Mukherjee: a respected party veteran". Agence France-Presse. 24 October 2006. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
- ^ "India gets new foreign minister". BBC News. 4 October 2006. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
- ^ GK Gokhale (19 April 2004). "Why is Dr. Singh Sonia's choice?". rediff.com. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
- ^ Aditi Phadnis (29 March 2005). "Pranab: The master manager". rediff.com. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
- ^ Rajesh Ramachandran (10 January 1998). "The BJP's new-found secularism is a reckless exercise to hoodwink the people". rediff.com. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
External links
- Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee
- About Pranab Mukherjee
- Profile at Govt. of India website
- Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website
- Saddam verdict: India reacts guardedly
- http://www.un.org/webcast/ga/61/pdfs/india-e.pdf
- 1935 births
- Bengali politicians
- Defence Ministers of India
- Finance Ministers of India
- Ministers for External Affairs of India
- Indian politicians
- Indian Hindus
- Living people
- Members of the Cabinet of India
- People from Kolkata
- University of Calcutta alumni
- 14th Lok Sabha members
- Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan
- Recipients of the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award
- People from Birbhum district