I was quite impressed with the Minister's knowledge on Indian politics and global issues. His career is quite impressive. As an NRI, he went back to India to contest in the elections in the state Kerala and won. Isn't that phenomenal?
Some info on Dr. Tharoor gathered from the Wikipedia:
Dr. Shashi Tharoor is the Indian Minister of State for External Affairs and a member of the Indian Parliament from the Trivandrum constituency in Kerala. He served as the UN Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information between June 2002 and February 2007, during the term of Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the United Nations.
In 2006, he was the official candidate of India for the office of United Nations Secretary-General, and came second out of seven official candidates in the race. He is also a prolific author, columnist, journalist, human-rights advocate, humanitarian and adviser or fellow of various institutions, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Aspen Institute, and the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
On 19 March 2009, Tharoor was declared as the Indian National Congress candidate of the Thiruvananthapuram (Lok Sabha constituency) in Kerala for the General Elections in 2009. Tharoor featured in a five-cornered contest against P. Ramachandran Nair of the Communist Party of India (CPI), Neelalohitadasan Nadar of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), M.P. Gangadharan of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and P. K. Krishna Das of Bharathiya Janata Party (BJP). Tharoor's political website, www.shashitharoor.in, and use of new media technologies in his campaign (including emails, voice SMS, and the use of social networking websites (Facebook and Twitter) set the benchmark for future political websites and organizing in India. He eventually became the first Indian celebrity to get 100,000 followers on Twitter
Despite the dispersal of the anti-Left vote amongst several candidates, and the challenge of being attacked as an elite "outsider" by his opponents, Tharoor won a thumping victory, defeating his nearest CPI rival P. Ramachandran Nair by a margin of around 100,000 votes (the biggest victory by any candidate in Thiruvananthapuram in over 30 years) when the results were announced on May 16, 2009.
On 28 May 2009, Shashi Tharoor was sworn in as Minister of State of the Union Government of India as External Affairs minister, in the Council of Ministers of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Best of wishes to the Honorable Minister and hope he continues to walk the path of service to humanity. It was nice of him to talk less and took questions from the audience.
Below are some photos of the events. (I think I need a new, better camera.)
Dr. Tharoor delivering his speech to the audience..
Mr. Ashook Ramsaran, Executive Vice President of GOPIO and Dr. Tharoor
Mr. Ashook Ramsaran, Executive Vice President of GOPIO and Dr. Tharoor
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