Nirmala Sitharaman is an Indian economist, politician and the current Finance Minister of India.
She was born in 1959 in Tamil Nadu to Savitri and Narayanan Sitharaman. She completed her early education in Villupuram, Chennai, and Tiruchirapalli.
She pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics at the Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College, Tiruchirapalli in 1980.
She then did her Master of Arts degree in Economics and MPhil from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi in 1984.
Sitharaman started her political career as a member of the National Commission for Women in 2003 and served there till 2005. She then joined the BJP in 2008 and acted as a national spokesperson of the party till 2014.
She joined PM Modi’s cabinet as a junior minister in 2014 and was elected as a Rajya Sabha member from Andhra Pradesh later that year.
She has served as the Defence Minister of India, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, and Union Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs. She also became the Deputy Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha this year.
She has been the Finance Minister of India since 2019 and this year she is set to table her seventh consecutive budget, breaking the record of Morarji Desai who presented six consecutive budgets.