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Nirmala Sitharaman

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Nirmala Sitharaman
Sitharaman in April 2025
30th Minister of Finance
Incumbent
Assumed office
30 May 2019
President
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded byArun Jaitley
32nd Minister of Corporate Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office
30 May 2019
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded byArun Jaitley
Minister of Defence
In office
3 September 2017 – 30 May 2019
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded byArun Jaitley
Succeeded byRajnath Singh
Minister of State for Commerce and Industry
In office
26 May 2014 – 3 September 2017
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded byAnand Sharma
Succeeded bySuresh Prabhu
Minister of State for Finance
In office
26 May 2014 – 9 November 2014
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded byShripad Naik
Succeeded byJayant Sinha
Minister of State for Corporate Affairs
In office
26 May 2014 – 9 November 2014
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byArjun Ram Meghwal
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
Incumbent
Assumed office
1 July 2016
Preceded byM. Venkaiah Naidu
ConstituencyKarnataka
In office
26 June 2014 – 21 June 2016
Preceded byN. Janardhana Reddy
Succeeded bySuresh Prabhu
ConstituencyAndhra Pradesh
Personal details
Born (1959-08-18) 18 August 1959 (age 66)
Madurai, Madras State, India
(Present-day Tamil Nadu)
PartyBharatiya Janata Party
Spouse
​
(m. 1986)​
Children1
Residence(s)15, Safdarjung Road, New Delhi
Alma materSeethalakshmi Ramaswami College (BA)
Jawaharlal Nehru University (MA, MPhil)

Nirmala Sitharaman (born 18 August 1959) is an Indian economist and politician who is serving as the 30th minister of finance and the 32nd minister of corporate affairs since 2019. Prior to that, she served as the defence minister. A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), she was elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, from Karnataka in July 2016.

Born in a Tamil family in 1959 at Madurai, Sitharaman obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College in 1980, and a Master of Arts in Economics and Master of Philosophy from the Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1984. She briefly worked in various roles in the United Kingdom, before returning to India. In 2003, she was appointed as a member of the National Commission for Women from 2003, and served till 2005.

Sitharaman joined the BJP in 2008 and served as a national spokesperson for the party from 2010 to 2014. In May 2014, she was appointed as the minister of state with an independent charge of the ministry of commerce and industry in the First Modi ministry, and held the position till September 2017. She also held the role of minister of state in the finance and corporate affairs ministries briefly from May to November 2014. After assuming office, she got elected to the Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh in June 2014. On 3 September 2017, she was appointed as the 28th defence minister.

On 30 May 2019, Seetharaman was appointed as the minister of finance and corporate affairs in the Second Modi ministry. After serving for five years, she was reappointed to the position in the Third Modi ministry in June 2024, after the National Democratic Alliance won the 2024 Indian general election. She is the first woman to hold the positions of minister of defence and minister of finance full-time.[a] In July 2025, she became the longest continuous serving Indian finance minister surpassing C. D. Deshmukh. In February 2026, she became the first Indian finance minister to present the union budget for nine consecutive times.

Early life and education

Sitharaman was born into a Tamil Iyengar family in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, to Savitri and Narayanan Sitharaman.[1][2][3] Her father worked with the Indian Railways.[4][5] She studied at Sacred Heart Convent Anglo-Indian School in Viluppuram and then at the Vidyodaya School in Chennai. She passed her SSLC at St. Philomena’s School and the higher secondary at Holy Cross School in Tiruchirappalli.[6][7]

Sitharaman obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College, Tiruchirapalli, in 1980, and a Master of Arts degree in economics and a Master of Philosophy from the Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1984.[8][9] She later enrolled in a Ph.D. program in economics at the university but later left this program and then moved to London, U.K., when her husband secured a scholarship at London School of Economics.[7][10]

Non-political career

After moving to London, Sitharaman initially worked as a salesperson at Habitat, a home decor store in Regent Street. She later served as an assistant to an economist at the Agricultural Engineers Association. She has also worked as a senior manager of R&D at PricewaterhouseCoopers and at the BBC World Service briefly.[1][7][11] After returning to India in 1991, she served as the deputy director of the Centre for Public Policy Studies in Hyderabad. In 2004, she was one of the founding directors of Pranava, a private co-educational school in Hyderabad.[1][12] She was appointed as a member of the National Commission for Women in 2003, and served in the position till 2005.[13]

Political career

Sitharaman joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2006 and was appointed to its national executive committee in 2008.[1] She was appointed as a national spokesperson of the party in 2010, and served in the role till 2014.[14]

Minister of state

After the BJP won the 2014 Indian general election, Narendra Modi was sworn in as the prime minister.[15] On 26 May 2014, Modi inducted Sitharaman in his first cabinet as the minister of state with an independent charge of the ministry of commerce and industry.[5][16] She also held additional portfolios of minister of state in the finance and corporate affairs ministries briefly from May to November 2014.[17] As mandated by the Constitution of India,[b] she was elected to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, from Andhra Pradesh, in June 2014.[18] In May 2016, she was one of the 12 candidates nominated by the BJP to contest the Rajya Sabha elections on 11 June.[19] She successfully contested her seat from Karnataka and re-elected to the parliament.[20]

Cabinet minister

Sitharaman taking charge as defence minister on 7 September 2017

On 3 September 2017, Sitharaman was appointed as the minister of defence, being only the second woman after Indira Gandhi to hold the post, and the first full-time female defence minister.[a][21] During her tenure, the Indian Armed Forces conducted the Balakot airstrike inside Pakistan on 26 February 2019, in response to the earlier attack on an Indian Army convoy on 14 February.[22] Sitharaman later said that the attack targeted militant camps and no civilian was harmed, while not giving details on the damages and number of deaths caused by the strikes.[23]

After BJP won a majority in the 2019 Indian general election, Seetharaman was appointed as the minister of finance and corporate affairs in the Second Modi ministry on 30 May 2019.[24] She is the second woman to hold the position after Indira Gandhi, and India's first full-time female finance minister.[a][25] She presented her maiden budget in the Indian parliament on 5 July 2019.[26][27] During the COVID-19 pandemic, she was in-charge of the COVID-19 Economic Response Task Force.[28][29] After the 2024 Indian general election, she was reappointed as the finance minister in the Third Modi ministry in June 2024.[30][31] In June 2025, a Delhi court issued a notice to her in connection with a criminal defamation plea filed by Lipika Mitra, the wife of former Aam Aadmi Party minister Somnath Bharti.[32]

In July 2025, she became the longest continuous serving Indian finance minister surpassing C. D. Deshmukh.[33] During her tenure as the finance minister, India became the fifth largest economy in the world in 2022,[34][35] and the fourth largest in 2025.[36] In February 2026, she presented the union budget for the ninth consecutive year, became the first Indian finance minister to do so.[37][38]

Electoral history

Position Party State/UT From To Tenure Ref.
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
(1st Term) 		BJP Andhra Pradesh 26 June 2014 17 June 2016 1 year, 357 days [18]
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
(2nd Term) 		Karnataka 1 July 2016 30 June 2022 9 years, 222 days [20]
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
(3rd Term) 		1 July 2022 present

Awards and honours

The Jawaharlal Nehru University conferred her the distinguished alumni award in 2019.[39] In 2025, Forbes ranked her 24th among the 100 most powerful women in the world.[40] This was her seventh consecutive time on the list, after being placed 34th in 2019, 41st in 2020, 37th on the list in 2021, 36th in 2022, 32nd in 2023 and 28th in 2024.[41][42] She was awarded the business reformer of the year at the Economic Times Awards in 2021.[43]

Personal life

Sitharaman met Parakala Prabhakar, who hailed from Narsapuram, Andhra Pradesh, while studying at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.[7][44] They married in 1986 and have a daughter Vangmayi, a journalist.[45][46] Prabhakar served as the communications advisor to the Government of Andhra Pradesh from 2014 to 2018.[47]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Indira Gandhi, who was the Indian prime minister, held additional responsibilities as the minister of finance in 1970, and the minister of defence from 1980 to 1982.
  2. ^ As per the Constitution of India, a union minister should be a member of the Indian parliament. If they are not a member during their appointment, then they must get elected within a period of six months from the date of appointment.

References

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  2. ^ "Nirmala Sitharaman Biography: Age, Family, Education, Political Career, Recognitions". Jagranjosh. 1 February 2026. Retrieved 1 June 2025.
  3. ^ "Nirmala Sitharaman". Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Retrieved 1 June 2025.
  4. ^ "Nirmala Sitharaman's parents watch her first budget speech in Parliament". The Hindustan Times. 5 July 2019. Retrieved 1 June 2025.
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  6. ^ "Budget 2025: FM Nirmala Sitharaman educational qualification - Impressive journey from academics to politics". ET Now. 20 February 2025. Retrieved 1 June 2025.
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  8. ^ "Rajya Sabha Affidavits: Nirmala Sitharaman" (PDF). Parliament of India. 30 May 2016. p. 7. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 April 2022. Retrieved 2 June 2019.
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  10. ^ "Nirmala has her roots in Tiruchi". The Hindu. 26 May 2014. Retrieved 1 June 2025.
  11. ^ "In Nirmala Sitharaman, India Gets Its Second Woman Defence Minister After Indira Gandhi". Huffington Post. 3 September 2017. Archived from the original on 13 September 2017. Retrieved 13 September 2017.
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  14. ^ Chatterjee, Mohua (21 March 2010). "BJP gets a JNU product as its woman spokesperson". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
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  18. ^ a b "Nirmala elected to Rajya Sabha". The Hindu. 27 June 2014. ISSN 0971-751X. Archived from the original on 12 August 2020. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
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  20. ^ a b "Nirmala Sitharaman Wins Rajya Sabha Seat From Karnataka, Congress Gets 3". NDTV. Archived from the original on 11 June 2016. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  21. ^ "India new defence minister hails progress for women". BBC News. 4 September 2017. Retrieved 1 June 2025.
  22. ^ Peri, Dinakar; Haidar, Suhasini (26 February 2019). "India bombs Jaish camp in Pakistan's Balakot". The Hindu. Retrieved 1 June 2025.
  23. ^ Rohit, T. K. (5 March 2019). "Govt stand on death toll in IAF Pak. strike same as one given by Foreign Secretary: Nirmala Sitharaman". The Hindu. Retrieved 1 June 2025.
  24. ^ "PM Modi allocates portfolios. Full list of new ministers". Live Mint. 31 May 2019. Archived from the original on 2 June 2019. Retrieved 2 June 2019.
  25. ^ "Narendra Modi Cabinet: Amit Shah gets Home and Nirmala Sitharaman is India's first full-time woman Finance Minister". The Hindu. 31 May 2019. Archived from the original on 31 May 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
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  30. ^ "Press Communique 18". Rashtrapati Bhavan (Press release). 10 June 2024. Archived from the original on 10 June 2024. Retrieved 10 June 2024.
  31. ^ "Modi 3.0: Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman, S Jaishankar — 10 ministers retain Cabinet berths". The Indian Express. 9 June 2024. Archived from the original on 10 June 2024. Retrieved 9 June 2024.
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  33. ^ "List of longest serving finance minister of India". Jagran Josh. Retrieved 1 February 2026.
  34. ^ "India becomes fifth largest economy in the world". World Economic Forum. 26 September 2022. Archived from the original on 5 July 2023. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  35. ^ "All promises made in 2014, 2019 enforced: Nirmala Sitharaman on nine years of NDA". The Indian Express. 29 May 2023. Archived from the original on 5 July 2023. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  36. ^ "India is now fourth largest economy, says govt". The Hindu. 31 December 2025. Retrieved 1 January 2026.
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  38. ^ "Who has presented the most number of Budgets?". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 30 January 2025.
  39. ^ Staff Reporter (12 June 2019). "Nirmala Sitharaman, Jaishankar to get JNU's Distinguished Alumni Award". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 13 December 2019.
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  41. ^ "Nirmala Sitharaman, 5 other Indians among Forbes World's 100 Most Powerful Women". The Hindu. 7 December 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2025.
  42. ^ "The World's Most Powerful Women 2023". Forbes. 5 December 2023. Archived from the original on 5 December 2023. Retrieved 5 December 2023.
  43. ^ "ET Business Reformer of the Year 2021: Nirmala Sitharaman-Life support and recovery, forged in the crucible of a pandemic". The Economic Times. 7 May 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2025.
  44. ^ "Meet the Union Finance Minister". Government of India. Archived from the original on 12 August 2019. Retrieved 17 August 2019.
  45. ^ "Vangmayi Parakala". Jaipur Literature Festival, Colorado. 17 September 2013. Archived from the original on 8 December 2021. Retrieved 10 June 2024.
  46. ^ "Meet Vangmayi Parakala, the daughter of Nirmala Sitharaman; Know about her education, career, and more". The Financial Express. 6 June 2024. Retrieved 1 June 2025.
  47. ^ "AP govt advisor and Nirmala Sitharaman's husband Parakala Prabhakar quits, blames Jagan". The News Minute. 19 June 2018. Archived from the original on 20 November 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
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