P. Chidambaram ( born September 16, 1945) is an Indian politician and present Union Minister of Home Affairs of the Republic of India. He is among the most prominent cabinet ministers of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) union government led by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. From May 2004 to November 2008, he was the Finance Minister of India. However, after the resignation of Shivraj Patil, Chidambaram was made the Home Affairs Minister.[2]
P. Chidambaram was also a Cabinet Minister with the Finance portfolio for a brief period in the United Front coalition government from 1996 to 1998. Prior to this, he was Minister of State (Deputy Minister) in the Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao led Congress-party governments, holding other portfolios. He hails from the family of Nagarathar or Nattukotai Chettiars of Tamil Nadu.
Chidambaram, as finance minister under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Deputy Chairman of India's Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia is a part of the Planning Commission of India.
Chidambaram also has been a director of controversial mining company, Vedanta Resources just before quitting to become the finance minister of India.
Early life and Education
Chidambaram was born to Kandanur L. Ct. L. Palaniyappa Chettiar and Mrs. Lakshmi Achi in Kanadukathan in the Sivaganga District, in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. He was born into the royal family of Chettinad.
Chidambaram did his schooling from the prestigious Madras Christian College Hr.Sec.School, Chennai. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Statistics from The Presidency College, Chennai, he completed his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from the Madras Law College, and his Masters in Business Administration (M.B.A.) from Harvard Business School.
He enrolled as an Advocate in the Chennai High Court. He was designated as a Senior Advocate in 1984. He has chambers in Delhi and Chennai and practices in the Supreme Court and in various High Courts in India. He has also appeared in a number of arbitration proceedings, both in India and abroad.
Political traits
Chidambaram has indeed fulfilled multiple roles as a politician, moving from the highly-charged politics of his home state of Tamil Nadu, to addressing the financial media in Mumbai, and presenting India's views at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. He is a trustee of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, and also a trustee of the Tamil ‘Ilakiya Chintanai’ (Tamil Literary Foundation - literally, Tamil Literary Thoughts), Chennai, India.
Chidambaram has been classed as a staunch socialist[3], was a trade union activist in his early years. He was a critic of Friedrich Hayek and the free-market. Chidambaram was also instrumental in implementing the ideas of Friedrich Engels by banning futures trades in wheat and rice. [4] As an ideologue opposed to the free-market and as a firm believer of the planned economy, he forced the steel industry to cut its exports and threatened the cement manufacturers to cut prices or face punitive action. [5]
At the same time, he has also been pegged as a pro-business reformer. His Budget in 1997 was termed a "Dream Budget" by a large segment of the Indian business community.[6] As part of the team that in 1991 laid the foundations for significant macroeconomic reforms under then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, he is widely known as someone who moved India away from the infamous 'license-quota-permit raj' towards greater economic freedom and global integration.[7]
Controversies
He represented the bankrupt American energy giant Enron, as a senior lawyer in India, and is again set to revive its Dhabol power project.[8] [9]
He resigned on 10 July 1992 from the Minister position owning moral responsibility for investing in Fairgrowth, a company allegedly involved in securities scam.[10]
In 1997, he announced a controversial Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS) which granted income-tax defaulters indefinite immunity from prosecution under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973, the Income Tax Act, 1961, the Wealth Tax Act, 1957, and the Companies Act, 1956 in exchange for self-valuation and disclosure of income and assets. [11] The Comptroller and Auditor General of India condemned the scheme in his report as abusive and a fraud on the genuine taxpayers of the country. [12]
It should be noted that Chidambaram also represented the controversial British mining conglomerate Vedanta Resources in the Mumbai High Court until 2003 when he became the finance minister of India. He was also a member of the board of directors of that company.[13]
In August 2006, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam gave permission to enquire into the allegations that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had been holding office of profit at the time of elections. It has been alleged that they both had been the board members of Rajiv Gandhi Trust Foundation. The Election Commission has been authorised to enquire into the allegations.[14]
On 7 April 2009, P. Chidambaram was shoed by Jarnail Singh, a Sikh journalist during a press conference in Delhi. Singh, who works at the Hindi daily Dainik Jagaran was dissatisfied with Chidamabaram's answer to a question on the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) clean chit to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.[15]
Later, Jarnail Singh appeared on a few media channels and thanked Chidambaram for taking no action against him and said that he would apologize to Chidambaram if he got a chance to meet him personally.[16] He also said that his method of protest was wrong, but the issue was right.[17][18] He also declined to take money offered to him by the Shiromani Akali Dal, a Sikh political party.
Personal Life
He is married to Nalini Chidambaram who is a Senior Advocate and a tax lawyer practicing in the Madras High Court and the Supreme Court, primarily in litigation related to the Central Excise department of the Government of India. He has a son, Karti P. Chidambaram, who graduated with a BBA degree from the University of Texas, and a Master of Law from Cambridge University.
Source : Wikipedia
Source : Wikipedia
