Pranab Mukherjee

Pranab Mukherjee প্রণব মুখোপাধ্যায়
Minister of Finance of India
Incumbent
Assumed office  24 January 2009
Prime Minister	Manmohan Singh
Preceded by	Manmohan Singh
In office January 1982 – December 1984
Prime Minister	Indira Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi
Preceded by	Ramaswamy Venkataraman
Succeeded by	Vishwanath Pratap Singh
Minister of External Affairs of India
In office 24 October 2006 – 23 May 2009
Prime Minister	Manmohan Singh
Preceded by	Manmohan Singh
Succeeded by	Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna
In office 10 February 1995 – 16 May 1996
Prime Minister	Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao
Preceded by	Dinesh Singh
Succeeded by	Sikander Bakht
Minister of Defence of India
In office 22 May 2004 – 26 October 2006
Prime Minister	Manmohan Singh
Preceded by	George Fernandes
Succeeded by	Arackaparambil Kurian Antony
Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission of India
In office 24 June 1991 – 15 May 1996
Prime Minister	Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao
Preceded by	Mohan Dharia
Succeeded by	Madhu Dandavate
Born	11 December 1935 (1935-12-11) (age 73) Birbhum, British Raj
Political party	UPA-INC
Residence	Kolkata, India
Alma mater	University of Calcutta
Religion	Hindu
Website	http://meaindia.nic.in/onmouse/eam.htm

Pranab Kumar Mukherjee (Bengali: প্রণব কুমার মুখোপাধ্যায় born December 11, 1935, West Bengal, India) is the current Finance Minister of India. A prominent leader of the Indian National Congress, also known to be a competent jockey apparatchik, a prominent Gandhi family loyalist.^{[citation needed]}

He holds 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 college teacher at some time. He also has an honorary D. Litt.

Early life

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)^[1]. His father was also a respected freedom fighter who had been sent to prison for more than 10 years for his opposition to the British rule. He attended the Suri Vidyasagar College, Suri (Birbhum), then affiliated with the University of Calcutta.

Career

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.^[2]

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. His initial inclusion was an accident, having gone to witness the swearing in of ministers at Rashtrapathi Bhavan, when the number to be sworn in was found inauspicious, the spectator Pranab was added on to make it auspicious.

He rose through a series of cabinet posts to become the Finance Minister of India from 1982 to 1984. In 1984, he was rated as the best Finance Minister of the World according to a survey of Euromoney magazine.^[3] 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.^[4] 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 is also President of West Bengal state unit of Congress since 1985. In 2004, when the Congress formed a government at the head of a coalition the new Congress Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was only an 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.

International role

Pranab Mukherjee played a central role in the implementation of the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement.

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.^[5]

Political party role

Mukherjee is very well respected within the party; social policies."^[6] Other media accounts describe him as having "a reputation as a number-crunching politician with a phenomenal memory and an unerring survival instinct."^[7]

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.^[8] Mukherjee's unfailing loyalty and competence have led to his closeness to Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, and helped him gain the prestigious position of Defence Minister of India 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."^[9] Finally the bill was approved on March 23, 2005.

Views on corruption

Pranab Mukherjee himself appears to have a clean image, but is a pragmatist. 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.^[10]

Foreign Minister: October 2006

Pranab Mukherjee with US President George W. Bush in 2008.

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 was 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.

Personal life

Pranab Mukherjee married Suvra Mukherjee on July 13, 1957 and has three sons and a daughter.

References

Wikinews has related news: Mukherjee injured in accident

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