| Mani Shankar Aiyar |
Article Index for Mani |
Website Links For Mani |
Information AboutMani Shankar Aiyar |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT MANI SHANKAR AIYAR | |
| 1941 births | |
| living people | |
| tamil politicians | |
| indian politicians | |
| dosco | |
| indian national congress politicians | |
| 14th lok sabha members | |
| members of the cabinet of india | |
|
Mani Shankar Aiyar (born April 10 , 1941 , Lahore ) is a controversial India n politician. He has been a member of the Indian National Congress party. He is the Cabinet Minister for Panchayati Raj and also for Youth Affairs & Sports in the Manmohan Singh government. He represents Mayiladuthurai , Tamil Nadu in the 14th Lok Sabha . He attended The Doon School and St. Stephen's College , studied economics in Delhi and Cambridge and served for 26 years in the IFS , the last five of which were on deputation to the Prime Minister’s Office under Rajiv Gandhi ( 1985 - 89 ). He resigned from service in 1989 to take up a career in politics and the media, entering Parliament as a Congress MP from the state of Tamil Nadu in 1991 , was badly mauled in 1996 and re-elected in 1999 . He is a special invitee to the Congress Working Committee and chairman of both the party’s political training department and the department of policy planning and coordination. He is, besides, a well-known political columnist and has written several books, including Pakistan Papers and Remembering Rajiv, as also edited a four-volume publication, ''Rajiv Gandhi’s India''. He is married, and has three grown-up daughters. His special interests include grassroots democracy, Indian foreign policy—particularly with India's neighborhood countries and West Asia —and Nuclear Disarmament . CONTROVERSIES Aiyar has frequently courted controversy through his off-the-cuff utterances. He published an article in '' Sunday '' in which he described the widowed Sheila Dixit (now the Chief Minister of Delhi ) as a "gangster's moll"; for this, he was censured by the Press Council Of India .He then went on to call his now Cabinet colleagus, P.Chidambaram "an amoral person" and Sharad Pawar a "racist and a worm." At a party given by painter Satish Gujral , Aiyar was physically beaten by fellow politician Amar Singh for being abusive.This incident attracted headlines. Despite his conduct, he remained in favour with Rajiv Gandhi, and later on Sonia Gandhi, because of their need to have a speechwriter. As a Cabinet Minister he toured Andaman and made derogatory remarks against an accepted (although controversial) freedom fighter for which the Prime Minister himself had to disown the remarks, dismissing them as his personal comments. On elevation to the Cabinet he again annoyed many in a TV interview with noted journalist Prabhu Chawla in which he made impolite gestures with both his thumbs. He has unapologetically described himself as Rajiv Gandhi's "willing slave", most recently on Rajat Sharma 's TV programme. As his entry on the Lok Sabha roll shows, he continues to reside at Sainik Farm , an illegal colony, despite being a Cabinet Minister. EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|