Nirmala Sitharaman Profile: All You Need To Know About Our Finance Minister As Budget 2023 Nears
Nirmala Sitharaman is set to present the Budget 2023 on February 1, 2023. Learn more about our current Finance Minister.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to present the Budget 2023 before the Parliament on February 1, 2023. The ‘halwa ceremony‘ for the Union Budget 2023-24 was conducted on Thursday, January 26, 2023, to mark the final stage of the Budget preparation process. The preparation of the Union Budget involves a great amount of hard work as it affects every individual and industry in the country. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her team are responsible to prepare and present the Union Budget.
Suggested Read: Budget 2023: Did You Know About The 'Halwa' Ceremony That Commemorates Budget Printing?
So, while we eagerly await the Budget 2023, let’s learn a little more about our current Finance Minister.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman- All You Need To Know
Indian politician Nirmala Sitharaman is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). A Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, Nirmala Sitharaman currently holds two important portfolios in the Narendra Modi-led government- the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Sitharaman is India’s first full-time woman finance minister. Earlier, Indira Gandhi, while she was the Prime Minister of India, had held finance as an additional portfolio for a short duration. Nirmala Sitharaman also served as the Defence Minister during the first stint of the PM Modi government.
Before entering active politics, Nirmala Sitharaman worked in the corporate sector after completing her master’s degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She eventually moved to London with her husband and joined the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). Later in the 1990s, Sitharaman returned to India and became an educationist. She later went on to be one of the founding directors of the Pranava school in Hyderabad.
During the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Sitharaman was nominated as a member of the National Commission for Women (NCW). She joined the BJP in 2008 and became a member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha as a BJP candidate in 2014.
In 2019, Jawaharlal Nehru University awarded Nirmala Sitharaman with the Distinguished Alumni Award. In the same year, Forbes Magazine ranked Sitharaman 34th among the 100 most powerful women in the world.