Nirmala Sitharaman

Nirmala Sitharaman (born 18 August 1959) is an Indian politician currently serving as the Defence Minister of India. She is also a member of the Rajya Sabha for Karnataka.

Sitharaman has formerly served as the Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs under the Ministry of Finance and the Minister for Commerce and Industry with independent charge. Prior to that, she has served as a national spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Personal life
Nirmala was born in Madurai to Narayanan and Savitri. Her father, Narayanan Sitaraman, hailed from Musiri, Tiruchirappalli district, Tamil Nadu, while her mother's family had its roots in Thiruvenkadu and Salem district. Her father was an employee of Indian Railways and hence she spent her childhood in various parts of the state. She was schooled in Madras and Tiruchirappalli. She obtained a BA in economics at the Seethalakshmi Ramaswamy College in Tiruchirapalli. And her Master's degree in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

She met her husband Parakala Prabhakar, from Narsapuram, while studying at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. While Nirmala leaned towards the BJP, her husband was from a pro-Congress family. He is currently a communications advisor to the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu.

Political career
Nirmala Sitharaman joined the BJP in 2008 and has served as a spokesperson for the party. In 2014, she was inducted in Narendra Modi's cabinet as a junior minister.

In May 2016, she was one of the 12 candidates nominated by the BJP to contest the Rajya Sabha elections due on 11 June 2016. She successfully contested her seat from Karnataka. On 3 September 2017, she was elevated to Defence Minister, being only the second woman after Indira Gandhi to hold the Defence Minister post.

Non-political career
Outside the political sphere, Sitharaman has served as an assistant to Economist in the Agricultural Engineers Association in the UK. During her stay in the UK, she has also served as a Senior Manager (R&D) for Price Waterhouse and briefly at the BBC World Service. She has also served as a member of National Commission for Women. As of 2017, she is one of the founding directors of Pranava school in Hyderabad.