One of the fastest rising stars in India’s cabinet is its new Finance Minister. She has western experience from her time in the United Kingdom and started out as the top spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s party just 13 years ago. For the last two years she was responsible for India’s defense ministry.
Born on August 18, 1959 in the temple town of Madurai in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu, Nirmala Sitharaman has masters’ degrees in Economics and in International Studies. She and her husband, Parakala Prabhakar, moved to London in 1986 where she worked with PricewaterHouse Coopers and then with BBC World. On their return to India in 1991, she served as Deputy Director of the Center for Public Policy Studies in Hyderabad.
In 2006 Sitharaman joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and was appointed the party’s national spokesperson. When the BJP formed the government in 2014, she was appointed as junior minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs. In 2017, Prime Minister Modi appointed her as the Defense Minister.
Sitharaman visited Hawaii in December 2018 when the U.S. Defense Department renamed its Pacific Command the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. Joshua T White of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies said that this was “a way of reaffirming to New Delhi and to the rest of the world that India is, and ought to be, an indispensable pole of the future Asian order.”
In the 2019 General Elections, Modi appointed Nirmala Sitharaman as the Minister for Finance and Minister for Corporate Affairs. She is the senior-most woman in his cabinet, and the second woman to helm the key ministries – Defense and Finance – after late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had held both these portfolios in addition to the PM role.
Sitharaman is in tune with the political goals of the Prime Minister — growth, jobs and development. Those who have worked with Sitharaman describe her as no nonsense, down-to-earth, straight-shooting, dedicated to her role, and decisive.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
