18 Sushma swaraj
Sushma Swaraj was born on 14
February 1952 is an Indian politician, former Supreme Court lawyer and the current Minister of External
Affairs of India, in office since 26 May 2014. A leader of Bhartiya Janata Party, Swaraj is the second woman
to be India's Minister of External Affairs, after Indira Gandhi. She has been elected seven times as a Member of Parliament and three times as a Member of the
Legislative Assembly. At the age of 25 in 1977, she became the
youngest cabinet minister of north Indian state of Haryana. She also served as 5th Chief Minister of Delhi for a brief term in 1998. In the 2014 Indian general election, she won the Vidisha constituency in Madhya Pradesh for a second term, retaining her seat by a
margin of over 400,000 votes. She became the Minister of External Affairs in
the union cabinet on 26 May 2014. Swaraj was called India's 'best-loved
politician' by the US daily Wall Street Journal. In 1973,Swaraj started practice as an advocate in the Supreme Court of India. Swaraj began her political career with Akhil Bhartiya
Vidyarthi Parishad in the 1970s. Sushma Swaraj became a part of George Fernandez's legal
Defence team in 1975. She actively participated in Jayaprakash Narayan's Total Revolution Movement. After the Emergency, she joined the Bhartiya Janata Party. Later, she became a
national leader of the BJP. In April 1990, she was elected as
a member of the Rajya Sabha and remained there until
she was elected to the 11th Lok Sabha from South Delhi
constituency in 1996. She was Union Cabinet Minister for Information
and Broadcasting during the 13-day government of PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in
1996. she was sworn in as Union Cabinet Minister
for Information and Broadcasting with additional charge of the Ministry of
Telecommunications from 19 March 1998 to 12 October 1998. Her most notable
decision during this period was to declare film production as an industry,
which made the Indian film industry eligible for bank
finance. Prior to this, the film industry was heavily financed by the
underworld on high rate of interest. This one decision liberated film industry
from the clutches of the underworld. She also started community radio at universities and other institutions. She
was Minister of
Health, Family Welfare and Parliamentary
Affairs from January 2003 until May 2004, when the National Democratic
Alliance Government lost the general election. As Union Health
Minister, she set up six All India Institute
of Medical Sciences at Bhopal (MP), Bhubaneshwar (Odisha), Jodhpur(Rajasthan), Patna (Bihar), Raipur (Chhattisgarh)
and Rishikesh (Uttarakhand). Swaraj was
re-elected to the Rajya Sabha for third term in April 2006 from Madhya Pradesh state. She served as the Deputy leader of
Opposition in Rajya Sabha till April 2009. Swaraj has been serving as the Indian Minister of External
Affairs under Prime Minister Narendra Modi since
May 2014, responsible for implementing the foreign policy of
Narendra Modi. She is only the second woman to hold this
position after Indira Gandhi. In 1977, she
became the youngest ever Cabinet Minister in the country at 25 years of age. In
1979, she became State President of Janata Party, Haryana State at the young
age of 27. Sushma Swaraj was the first female Spokesperson of a national
political party in India. She has many firsts to her credit as BJPs first
female Chief Minister, Union Cabinet Minister, general secretary, Spokesperson,
Leader of Opposition and Minister of External Affairs. She is the Indian
Parliament's first and the only female MP honoured with the Outstanding
Parliamentarian Award. She has contested 11 direct elections from
four states. She has served as the President of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan in
Haryana for four years.
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