Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor (, ; born 9 March 1956) is a former Indian international civil servant, diplomat, bureaucrat, politician, writer and public intellectual who has been serving as Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, since 2009.

He is the present Chairman of the Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilizers.

Shashi Tharoor was born on 9 March 1956 in London, United Kingdom to Chandran Tharoor and Sulekha Menon, a Malayali couple from Palakkad, Kerala.

Tharoor has two younger sisters, Shobha and Smitha.

Shashi's paternal grandfather's name was Chippukutty Nair.

Shashi's paternal uncle was Parameshwaran Tharoor, the founder of Reader's Digest in India.

Tharoor's father, originally from Kerala, worked in various positions in London, Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi, including a 25-year career (culminating as group advertising manager) for The Statesman.

Tharoor's parents returned to India when he was 2-years old, where he joined the Montfort School, Yercaud, in 1962, subsequently moving to Bombay (now Mumbai) and studying at the Campion School (1963–68).

Born in London, UK, and raised in India, Tharoor worked across the world, graduating from St. Stephen's College, Delhi in 1975 and culminated his studies in 1978 with a doctorate in International Relations and Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

At the age of 22, he was the youngest person at the time to receive such an honour from the Fletcher School.

In 1975, Tharoor graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from St Stephen's College at the University of Delhi, where he had been president of the student union and also founded the St. Stephen's Quiz Club.

Within the same year, Tharoor went to the United States to obtain an M.A. in International Relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford.

After obtaining his M.A. in 1976, Tharoor further obtained his Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy in 1977 and his Ph.D. in International Relations and Affairs in 1978.

While he was pursuing his doctorate, Tharoor was awarded the Robert B. Stewart Prize for best student and was also the first editor of the Fletcher Forum of International Affairs.

At the age of 22, he was the youngest person to receive a doctorate in the history of the Fletcher School.

From 1978 to 2007, Tharoor was a career official at the United Nations, rising to the rank of Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information in 2001.

Tharoor's career in the United Nations began in 1978 as a staff member of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva.

A Sahitya Akademi Award winner, Tharoor has authored many works of fiction and non-fiction since 1981.

Popular for his command over the English language, Tharoor was the most followed Indian on Twitter before being overtaken by Narendra Modi.

From 1981 until 1984 he was head of the UNHCR office in Singapore, during the boat people crisis, leading the organisation's rescue efforts at sea and succeeding in resettling a backlog of Vietnamese refugees.

He also processed Polish and Acehnese refugee cases.

After a further stint at the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, during which he became the first chairman of the staff elected by UNHCR personnel worldwide, Tharoor left UNHCR.

In 1989 he was appointed special assistant to the Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, the unit that later became the Peacekeeping Operations Department in New York.

Until 1996, he led the team responsible for peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia, spending considerable time on the ground during the civil war there.

In 1996, Tharoor was appointed Director of Communications and Special Projects and Executive Assistant to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

In January 2001, Tharoor was appointed as Interim Head of the Department of Public Information (DPI) at the Assistant-Secretary-General level.

He was subsequently confirmed as the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information (UNDPI) with effect from 1 June 2002.

In this capacity, he was responsible for the United Nations' communications strategy, enhancing the image and effectiveness of the organisation.

In 2003 the Secretary-General gave him the additional responsibility of United Nations Coordinator for Multilingualism.

He was formerly an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and unsuccessfully ran for the post of Secretary-General in 2006.

Founder-Chairman of All India Professionals Congress, he formerly served as Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs and on Informational Technology.

He has about two dozen titles to his credit and was awarded by World Economic Forum as "Global Leader of Tomorrow".

He announced his retirement after finishing second in the 2006 selection for U.N. Secretary-General to Ban Ki-moon.

In 2006, the government of India nominated Tharoor for the post of UN Secretary-General.

On 9 February 2007, Tharoor resigned from the post of Under-Secretary-General and left the UN on 1 April 2007.

During his tenure at the UNDPI, Tharoor reformed the department and undertook a number of initiatives, ranging from organizing and conducting the first-ever UN seminar on Antisemitism, the first-ever UN seminar on Islamophobia after the 11 September attacks, and launching an annual list of "Ten Under-Reported Stories the World Ought to Know about", which was last produced in 2008 by his successor.

In 2009, Tharoor began his political career by joining the Indian National Congress and successfully represented the party from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala by winning in the Lok Sabha elections and becoming a member of parliament thrice.

During the Congress-led UPA government, Tharoor served as Minister of State for External Affairs.

A non-loyalist of the Gandhis, Tharoor was defeated by Mallikarjun Kharge to be elected as party president in 2022.

He is currently a member of the Congress Working Committee, which is highest decision making body of the Indian National Congress.