Nirmala Sitharaman has been assigned the important portfolio of Finance along with Corporate Affairs. Sitharaman, who was the first woman to be made the full-time Defence Minister of India, is now the first woman to be a full-time Finance Minister of the country.
She is the second woman to hold the Finance portfolio after Indira Gandhi held the additional charge of Finance when she was Prime Minister in 1970-71.
Sixty-year-old Nirmala Sitharaman takes charge of what is perhaps the most important ministry at a time when the country is reeling from economic slowdown, a slump in consumption and rising unemployment.
But this isn't her first time being a part of the finance ministry as she has already served as a junior Minister in Finance and Corporate Affairs earlier.
Born on August 18, 1959, in Madurai, Sitharaman has a master’s degree in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University and has also worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers in London, apart from also working as an assistant to Economist in the Agricultural Engineers Association, London. She has also briefly worked with BBC World Service.
After returning to India, she has also served as Deputy Director of the Centre for Public Policy Studies in Hyderabad.
Sitharaman became a member of the National Women for Commission in 2003 and joined the BJP in 2006. She went on to become the national spokesperson of the party.
She was first inducted in the Union Cabinet in 2014 as the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce and Industry.
Before becoming the Defence Minister in the previous Modi government, Sitharaman served as the Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs.
As the Defence Minister, Sitharaman has driven several policy changes, which include the new defence manufacturing policy and defence industrial corridors in the states of Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
With the economy clocking a growth of 6.6% in October-December quarter, the slowest pace in five quarters, Sitharaman is faced with the massive challenge of kick-starting a slowing economy. Reforms that will address this slowdown, along with tax revenue shortfalls and stepping up public expenditures is what Sitharaman will have to look at. The agrarian crisis and unemployment are two other major issues that Sitharaman will need to address through policy measures.