Hina Rabbani Khar

Hina Rabbani Khar (Urdu: ; born 19 November 1974) is a Pakistani politician, who served as the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs since 19 April 2022 till 10 August 2023.

Khar is a graduate of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) where she holds a BSc (with honors) in Economics conferred in 1999.

She studied business at LUMS and University of Massachusetts Amherst before entering politics as a member of the national assembly in 2002, representing the PML-Q and becoming a junior minister responsible for economic policy under the Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

She subsequently studied in Isenberg School of Management at University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she earned an MSc in Business Management in 2002.

Khar has retained ties with LUMS since her graduation.

In the 2002 general elections, Khar was elected as a member of the National Assembly, representing the NA-177 (Muzaffargarh-II) constituency in Punjab.

Her father, veteran politician Ghulam Noor Rabbani Khar, had represented the constituency previously, but he and most of the members of her family had been disqualified.

A new law requiring all parliamentary candidates to hold a university degree meant that he and they could not run that year.

With the financial support of her father who addressed rallies on her behalf, she campaigned on a newly founded PML-Q platform against the Pakistan Muslim League, with her face not appearing on her own election posters.

Khar came to prominence during the Shaukat Aziz government and was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Economic Affairs and Statistics in 2003, and being named Minister of State for Economic Affairs the following year, a post she retained until 2007.

As minister of state, she worked with international relief funds and charities after the deadly 2005 earthquake in Northern Pakistan, and also worked on proposals for the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India pipeline.

In 2007, she made an unsuccessful attempt to renew her alliance with the PML-Q, but the party denied her a ticket platform to campaign for re-election in 2008.

She was subsequently invited to join the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and successfully campaigned for her constituency for a second time.

The PPP secured a plurality of the votes and formed a left-wing alliance with the Awami National Party, MQM and PML-Q.

After her 2008 re-election, she was appointed Minister of State for Finance and Economic Affairs in the cabinet of Yousaf Raza Gillani.

President Asif Ali Zardari, who succeeded Pervez Musharraf in 2008, said the appointment was "a demonstration of the government's commitment to bring women into the mainstream of national life".

She was appointed foreign minister during a difficult time in Pakistan: when the country's armed forces were confronting extreme elements in Western Pakistan and anti-American emotions ran high over the Raymond Davis incident.

Shortly after her appointment, Khar visited India and held peace talks with her Indian counterpart, S. M. Krishna.

Relations between the two countries had been suspended following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and did not resume until February 2011, five months before her visit.

The Indian media reported extensively on her fashion and appearance, including her Birkin bag, sunglasses, Jimmy Choo stilettos and pearl necklaces.

She held talks with leaders of the Hurriyat Conference before meeting Indian government representatives, a decision which was criticised by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India's biggest political party, which said it was a breach of protocol and demanded an inquiry into the matter.

She later led an unsuccessful move to grant India most favoured nation status.

In 2009, after switching parties and winning re-election with the Pakistan Peoples Party, she became the Minister of State for Finance and Economic Affairs and the same year became the first woman to present the national budget.[5] She was appointed by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani as the Foreign Minister of Pakistan in July 2011, and served until shortly before the 2013 election, when she retired from active politics.

She has continued to push for stronger ties with India.

She remains a member of the Pakistan People's Party, and is a public speaker on foreign policy.

She worked on the financial budget and economic policies in the absence of the then Finance Minister and on 13 June 2009 she successfully presented the 2010 federal budget in the Parliament and has the distinction of being the first woman politician to present the Pakistani budget in the National Assembly.

She also worked on reducing Pakistan's circular debt within the energy sector.

She was previously appointed in July 2011 as the Foreign Minister of Pakistan at the age of 33, she was the youngest person and the first woman to have held the position.

Khar was appointed as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs—the deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—on 11 February 2011, as part of Gillani's cabinet reshuffle.

Gillani did not reappoint Shah Mehmood Qureshi as Foreign Minister, and that position was left empty.

In the absence of any Foreign Minister, she was the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs for five months until her formal appointment as Foreign Minister on 18 July; she was sworn in on 19 July, becoming the youngest and first female Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In 2012, she delivered a lecture there on "Foreign Policy and Young Democracy", and secured funding for the Abdus Salam Institute of Physics.

Khar had been a member of the National Assembly from August 2018 to August 2023.

Khar is a member of an influential feudal family in Muzaffargarh.

As of 2019, she was a Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan on a reserved seat for women.

Hina Rabbani Khar was born in Multan, Punjab, Pakistan into a Khar clan, of the larger Kharal tribe.

Khar is the daughter of the powerful feudal landlord and politician Ghulam Noor Rabbani Khar.

Her father was a prominent national politician and served as a member of the National Assembly.

She is a niece of Ghulam Mustafa Khar, the former Governor and Chief Minister of Punjab.

and she is married to Feroz Gulzar.