Keep me logged in

Pride of the community
The man behind the dream budget
He is widely regarded as one of the main architects of the liberalistion drive in India in the early nineties. His budget in 1997 was acclaimed as a "Dream Budget" by economists and a large segment of the Indian business community. As part of the team that in 1991 laid the foundations for significant macroeconomic reforms under then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, Palaniappan Chidambaram is held as someone who moved India away from the infamous 'license-quota-permit raj' towards greater economic freedom.

In the Budget of 2008, his move to waive off farmers' debt has played a role in boosting aggregate demand in the Indian economy, thereby effectively insulating India from the impact of recession. He has also been very effective in presenting India's views at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.

The articulate and scholarly Chidambaram is one of the prominent cabinet ministers of the ruling United Progressive Alliance and handles Home Affairs. From May 2004 to November 2008, he was the Finance Minister. Chidambaram was also a Cabinet Minister with the Finance portfolio for a brief period in the United Front coalition government from 1996 to 1998. Prior to this, he was Minister of State in the Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao led Congress-party governments, holding other portfolios. He was born on September 16, 1945 to Kandanur L. Palaniyappa Chettiar and Lakshmi Achi in Kanadukathan in the Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu. He hails from a family of Nattukotai Chettiars of Tamil Nadu.

Chidambaram did his schooling from the MCC Higher Secondary School, Chennai. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in statistics from The Presidency College, Chennai, he completed his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from the Madras Law College, and his Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School He enrolled as an advocate in the Chennai High Court and was designated as a senior advocate in 1984. He has chambers in Delhi and Chennai and practices in the Supreme Court and in various High Courts in India. He has also appeared in a number of arbitration proceedings, both in India and abroad. Chidambaram was first elected to the Lok Sabha from the Sivaganga constituency of Tamil Nadu in 1984. He was re-elected from the same constituency in 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998, 2004 and 2009.

He was the TN Youth Congress president and then the general secretary of the TNCC unit. Chidambaram was inducted into the Union Council of Ministers in the government headed by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on 21 September 1985 as a Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Commerce and then in the Ministry of Personnel. He was elevated to the rank of Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions in January 1986. In October of the same year, he was appointed to the Ministry of Home Affairs as Minister of State for Internal Security. He continued to hold both offices until general elections were called in 1989.

When Chidambaram was first given a ministerial post, he was one among a relatively young, well-educated class of men brought into the government by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1984. He made radical changes in India's export-import (EXIM) policy, while at the ministry of commerce.

In 1996, Chidambaram quit the Congress party and joined a breakaway faction of the Tamil Nadu state unit of the Congress called the Tamil Maanila Congress led by Moopanar. In the general elections held in 1996, TMC along with a few national and regional level opposition parties formed a coalition government. It came as a big break for Chidambaram, who was given the key cabinet portfolio of finance, putting him in the limelight. He is a trustee of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, and also a trustee of the Tamil 'Ilakiya Chintanai' (Tamil Literary Foundation - literally, Tamil Literary Thoughts), Chennai.

A firm believer in free trade, Chidambaram is of the opinion that countries, which are open to competitive societies, have succeeded in removing poverty, while those, which remain closed and controlled, have not.

He is also a strong supporter of the World Trade Organization. Chidambaram strongly believes that a rule-based global trading system will benefit developing countries. In 1968, he married Nalini, a successful lawyer in her own right. They have a son, Karti P Chidambaram, who is an emerging Congress leader from Tamil Nadu.