P. Chidambaram

Palaniappan Chidambaram is an Indian politician and the current Union Minister of Finance in India. P. Chidambaram is a member of the Indian National Congress and is a Lawyer by profession. He has also served as the Home Affairs Minister for three years. He was born on 16th September 1945 in Kanadukathan in the Sivaganga District, Tamil Nadu and has two brothers and one sister. He is married to Nalini Chidambaram and has a son, Karti P. Chidambaram, who is also a politician in the Congress party.

Chidambaram graduated with a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree in Statistics from The Presidency College, Chennai. He further pursued Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree from the Madras Law College which is currently known as Dr. Ambedkar Government Law College, Chennai. He also holds a Masters in Business Administration (M.B.A.) degree from Harvard Business School and a Masters degree from Loyola College, Chennai. He is enrolled as an Advocate in the Chennai High Court and practices in the Supreme Court and in various High Courts in the country.

In 1984, Chidambaram was first elected in the Lok Sabha from Sivaganga Constituency of Tamil Nadu. He fought in elections on behalf of the Indian National Congress Party and was re-elected from the same constituency in the subsequent years of 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998, 2004 and 2009. In 1986, he served as a Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and got an additional responsibility as a Minister of State for Internal Security in Ministry of Home Affairs.

P.Chidambaram was made the Minister of State (Independent) in the Ministry of Commerce in 1991 but the next year he resigned from his post due to some controversies. In 1995, he was again appointed in the same post and made some amendments in Import and Export policies of India. In 1996, P.Chidambaram quit the Indian National Congress and formed Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) with Moopanar and went to Lok Sabha as a TMC MP. He was made the Union Minister of Finance and he fulfilled his duties till 1998.

In 2001, He separated from TMC and formed his own party "Congress Jananayaka Peravai". He later merged his party with the Indian National Congress in 2004.

The same year, P. Chidambaram was appointed as the Minister of Finance by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He served this post till 2008 and later in the same year he was appointed as the Minister of Home Affairs, which he served as a minister till 2009. In July 2012, when Pranab Mukherjee was appointed as the President of India, P.Chidambaram was again appointed as the Union Minister of Finance of India.

P. Chidambaram contribution to the finance and commerce sector of India is immense. During the budget of 2008, his move to waive off farmers debts had a big hand in improving collective demand in the Indian economy thus in effect protecting India from the impact of recession. In the "dream-budget" of 1996-97, he disciplined government spending by launching an ambitious tax reform program to tackle unmanageable fiscal deficit.