6 Things You Should Know About Nirmala Sitharaman, India's First Woman Defence Minister

One of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's six women ministers is India's newly appointed Defence Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has just created history. She became India's first woman full-time Defence Minister ( Late PM Indira Gandhi was the first woman to to handle the defence portfolio as an additional charge on a couple of ocassions earlier).

Here are 6 things about Nirmala Sitharaman you NEED to know.

1. Nirmala graduated from Seethalakshmi Ramasamy College, Tiruchirappalli and went on to join the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi from where she pursued masters in Economics.

2. She got married in 1986 and moved to London, where she worked at PWC as a Senior Manager.

3. Sitharaman also worked at the BBC World Service for a short while before returning to India in 1991.

4. Born on August 18, 1959, in Madurai, Sitharaman comes from humble beginnings. Her father, Narayanan Sitharaman worked in the Railways while her mother was a homemaker.

5. In 2003, Sitharaman was made a member of the National Commission for Women in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. She remained an NCW member till 2005. A year later, in 2006, Nirmala joined the BJP.

6. Not just that, the woman has a PhD dissertation in Indo-European textile trade.

Now that's a lady to look up to!

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