YASHWANT SINHA

                                            YASHWANT  SINHA 

                          Yashwant Sinha is an Indian administrator, politician and a former Minister of Finance (1990–1991 under Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar and March 1998 – July 2002 under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee  and Minister of External Affairs July 2002 – May 2004).^[3] He is a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. His son Jayant Sinha, a consultant and investor, won the 2014 elections for the Hazaribagh constituency and is currently serving as Minister of State for Civil Aviation in Narendra Modi's cabinet.In 2015, in recognition for his contributions to Indo-French relations, Sinha was conferred the Legion of Honor, France's highest civilian honor.Sinha was born in Patna, Bihar into a Kayastha family. He received his master's degree in Political Science in 1958.^[1] Subsequently, he taught the subject at the University of Patna till 1960.

                    Sinha joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1960 and spent over 24 years holding important posts during his service tenure. He served as Sub-Divisional Magistrate and District Magistrate for 4 years. He was Under Secretary and Deputy Secretary in the Finance Department of the Bihar Government for 2 years after which he worked in the Ministry of Commerce as Deputy Secretary to the Government of India. From 1971 to 1973, he was First Secretary (Commercial) in the Indian Embassy, Bonn, Germany. Subsequently, he worked as Consul General of India in Frankfurt from 1973 to 1974. After working for over seven years in this field, he acquired experience in matters relating to foreign trade and India's relations with the European Economic Community. Thereafter, he worked in the Department of Industrial Infrastructure, Government of Bihar State and in the Ministry of Industry, Government of India dealing with foreign industrial collaborations, technology imports, intellectual property rights and industrial approvals.^]He later was Joint Secretary to Government of India in the Ministry of Surface Transport from 1980 to 1984, his main responsibilities were road transport, ports and shipping. He resigned from service in 1984. Sinha resigned from the Indian Administrative Service in 1984 and joined active politics as a member of the Janata Party. He was appointed All-India General secretary of the party in 1986 and was elected Member of the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of the Indian Parliament) in 1988.When the Janata Dal was formed in 1989, he was appointed General Secretary of the party. He worked as Minister of Finance from November 1990 to June 1991 in Chandra Shekhar's Cabinet.He became the National Spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party in June 1996. He was appointed finance minister in March 1998. He was appointed as Minister for External Affairs on 1 July 2002. In the Lok Sabha elections of 2004, he was defeated in Hazaribagh Constituency. He re-entered the Parliament in 2005. On 13 June 2009, he resigned from the post of vice-president of BJP.

               Sinha was the finance minister until 1 July 2002, when he exchanged jobs with foreign minister Jaswant Singh. Sinha, during his tenure, was forced to roll back some of his government's major policy initiatives for which he was much criticised. Still, Sinha is widely credited for pushing through several major reform measures that put the Indian economy on a firm growth trajectory. Among them are lowering of real interest rates, introducing tax deduction for mortgage interest, freeing up the telecommunications sector, helping fund the National Highways Authority, and deregulating the petroleum industry. Sinha is also known for being the first Finance Minister to break the 53-year tradition of presenting the Indian budget at 5 pm local time, a practice held over from British Rule days that sought to present the Indian budget at a time convenient to the British Parliament (1130am GMT) rather than India's Parliament.Sinha has written a comprehensive account of his years as Finance Minister titled Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer.

          Yashwant Sinha has been accused by opponents, and by other political observers of trying to promote nepotism by nominating his son Jayant Sinha as a successor to contest from Hazaribagh overlooking the interests of many other loyal party workers, though he tried to justify the nomination of his son as a party decision.